


Let Your Demons Run

by 2kimi2furious



Series: The Yakuza AU [1]
Category: Ghost of Tsushima (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Yakuza, Crimes & Criminals, Drug Use, F/M, M/M, Modern Era, Multi, Organized Crime, Other, Racism (sort of), Recreational Drug Use, Threesome - F/M/M, Torture, Violence, Yakuza AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:54:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 29,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26640991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2kimi2furious/pseuds/2kimi2furious
Summary: The Yakuza AU no one asked for.
Relationships: Jin Sakai/Yuna, Ryuzo/Jin Sakai, Ryuzo/Jin Sakai/Yuna, Ryuzo/Yuna (Ghost of Tsushima)
Series: The Yakuza AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1938154
Comments: 71
Kudos: 43





	1. The Devil Won’t Let Me Be

It smells like blood and piss and vomit. Bile rises in his throat as the odor assaults his nostrils, but he chokes it back down and continues forward. He hears the thick, wet sounds of fists pummeling flesh into raw meat and the groans of a dying man. The hallway grows longer as he runs, his lungs ready to burst as they gasp for air, his heart pumping battery acid through his veins. 

“Jin,” the voice taunts. “You’re too late Jin.”

_ Fuck you _ , he thinks. He wants to scream it, but he can’t spare the breath.

The doorway at the end of the hall is open, taunting him. He runs as hard as he can, but the door doesn’t grow closer. Then there’s a loud bang-- a gunshot. In an instant, the hallway compresses and he’s standing in the open doorway at the end of it.

“Too late, Jin.”

The voice is coming from the body strapped to the chair in the center of the room. It’s stripped naked, bound with electrical cord and duct tape. Ugly bruises bloom across the man’s chest in purple, black, and blue, a grotesque parody of the colorful flowers that are tattooed on the skin beneath them. There’s a heavy black bag tied around the man’s face to keep him anonymous. But Jin knows who it is.

“You failed me, Jin,” the voice from beneath the bag hisses. “You’ve always failed me and you’re always going to.”

Jin doesn’t answer, though not for lack of trying. His mouth moves, but the words are physically stuck in his throat, so much so that he can’t breathe around them. Sweat trickles down from his temples and his heart pounds so loud in his ears, he wonders how he can even hear the dead man’s voice over it.

“You’ll fail him too,” the voice continues. “They’ll find him just like you found me.”

Jin hears a loud rip, the deafening sound of which knocks him back on the floor. The lifeless body in the chair is stirring. With superhuman strength, it rips free of its bindings and stands up, looming over him. Jin scrambles backwards like a crab, but the corpse is too fast for him. It snatches him up by the collar of his shirt and pulls him up into the air.

Jin’s body has grown smaller. That or the dead man has grown to an enormous size. Jin’s feet dangle in the air as the corpse holds him by the neck easily with one fist.

“You can’t hide this time,” the corpse growls. Then, with its other hand, it rips the bag away from its face, revealing the waxy, bloated face of Jin’s father.

“You see what they did to me, boy?” the corpse asks. His father’s breath smells of putrefaction and death. His face is ripped to shreds and discolored. The only thing Jin even recognizes are the familiar brown eyes glaring back at him.

Jin struggles to free himself from his father’s grasp, but he can’t. His fists are weak and small compared to his father’s hands which are unnaturally strong even in death. He does the only thing he can do and shut his eyes.

“Don’t!” his father’s breath is hot in his face and Jin wants to vomit. “Don’t close your eyes! Face me, Jin! Jin!”

He squeezes his eyes shut harder.

“Jin!” 

He feels something terrible against his face. The corpse’s tongue, unnaturally long and slimy, wraps around his head. 

_ He means to swallow me _ , Jin thinks.  _ Swallow me whole _ .

_ ……………………………………………………… _

Jin awoke to Kage frantically licking at his face and whining. 

“I’m awake,” he groaned, sitting up and pushing the dog away from him. “I’m awake.”

Kage stilled, sitting on his haunches on the bed patiently as Jin waited for his heart rate to slow. This hadn’t been the first time the dog had woken him up from a dream about his father, and it probably wouldn’t be the last time either.

“Good boy,” Jin said, after he’d gotten his breathing under control. 

At the sound of the familiar phrase, Kage pushed forward, nuzzling into his master’s hands. Jin pet him, scratching behind his ears where he knew he liked it. As he did, he glanced at the clock on his bedside table. The numbers flashed 4:04 am.  _ Shit _ .

He could never get back to sleep after a dream of his father, no matter how much he tried. There was no point in even attempting it. He didn’t want to anyway, considering he was soaked in sweat from the nightmare. No, it was best to get up and find a way to kill time until the rest of the world woke up.

Jin threw the sheets off of him and padded toward the bathroom, Kage following behind him in the dark. He flicked on the lightswitch and pulled the long sleeve henley he slept in over his head and threw it to the ground. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, lean, muscled, and covered in the tell-tale tattoos of a  _ yakuza _ . He frowned at his reflection. He needed a shave.

He’d just lathered the shaving cream on his face when he heard his phone chime from the bedroom.

“Ryuzo,” he groaned. Nobody else would be calling him at this time of night. Or, technically, this time of the morning.

He wiped the cream off of his face and stomped toward his phone.

“Have you even gone to bed yet?” Jin asked instead of answering with the customary  _ moshi moshi _ .

“Good morning to you too,” Ryuzo’s voice sang out. He didn’t sound drunk, but Jin wouldn’t have put it past him.

“I was sleeping, Ryuzo,” Jin complained.

“Liar.”

Ryuzo had been Jin’s friend for as long as he could remember. He knew Jin better than anyone, better perhaps than even his uncle did. Ryuzo was the one person Jin had never been able to fool.

“What do you want?”

“Do I need a reason to call up my best friend?”

“At four in the morning?” Jin asked. “ _ Absolutely _ you do.”

Ryuzo barked a laugh so loud Jin had to move his phone away from his ear. Kage cocked his head to the side at the sound of it. Jin grumbled and put the phone back to his ear.

“Fair enough,” Ryuzo continued. “Listen, how soon can you get to the old Kubara Lighthouse?”

_ ……………………………………………………… _

“Jin, you made it!” Ryuzo called out as Jin shut the door of his car. He was far too jovial for nearly five in the morning. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

He was wearing a cheap black suit that still managed to look fashionable on his tall frame. (That was one of the infuriating things about Ryuzo; he looked good in everything). He didn’t seem to be drunk, which was good, but he had a nasty bruise on his cheek.

“What happened?” Jin asked, raising a hand to turn Ryuzo’s face so that he could see it better in the darkness. But before he could, Ryuzo batted his hand away.

“Ran into a little trouble with some Kikuchi thugs,” Ryuzo shrugged. Jin groaned.

“You need to be more careful,” Jin chided. “Why were you out alone on their turf?”

“I wasn’t,” Ryuzo protested. “At least not at first.”

“But you ended up there.”

“What are you, my mother?” Ryuzo asked, crossing his arms across his chest like a petulant child.

“I’m your  _ friend _ ,” Jin frowned. “Although when you pull shit like this, it makes me question my own judgment.”

Ryuzo cracked a smile. He uncrossed his arms and threw one around Jin’s shoulders jovially.

“I hope you don’t ever come to your senses, then,” he said. “Who else am I going to call at 4am for illicit trysts at the old lighthouse?”

Ryuzo waggled his eyebrows suggestively and Jin shoved his arm away.

“Speaking of,” Jin said. “Why did you call me out here again?”

“Right,” Ryuzo said, knocking one of his fists against his forehead. “I almost forgot.”

He turned and headed toward a black car parked not far from where they were standing. He beckoned Jin to follow, the heels of his shoes echoing loudly against the concrete. Ryuzo reached into his pockets for his keys and popped the trunk.

“Oh shit, Ryuzo,” Jin hissed. “What did you  _ do? _ ”

Inside the trunk of Ryuzo’s car was a man, badly bruised and bloodied, bound with duct tape. He was still alive, and he squirmed angrily when he saw the two men standing over him. 

“Relax,” Ryuzo said, annoyingly blasé about having a man tied up in his trunk. “I didn't kill him. Just roughed him up a bit.”

“Did my uncle ask you to do this?” Jin asked.

“No,” Ryuzo said. “This asshole just had a bit of bad luck.”

Jin turned to Ryuzo and grabbed the lapel of his jacket. He was forceful enough to cause him to stumble forward.

“You do not  _ do _ things like this,” Jin growled through his teeth. “Not without orders. Who is this?”

“I told you,” Ryuzo said, wrenching himself out of Jin’s grasp. He was no longer smiling now, and looked extremely annoyed with Jin. “Kikuchi thug.”

Jin ran a hand through his hair as he tried to quell his anger. What was done was done and there was nothing he could do to change it, apart from paying the man off to keep quiet to his bosses about this. But Jin wasn’t prepared to do that. This was not the first time Ryuzo had done something stupidly impulsive and it probably wouldn’t be the last. It would come back to bite him in the ass one of these days.

Ryuzo was straightening out the collar of his jacket when Jin turned and slugged him hard in the face.

“Mother _ fucker _ ,” Ryuzo swore as he clutched his cheek. “You could have at least hit me on the other side of my face!”

“Fuck, I forgot how sharp your cheekbones are,” Jin hissed, shaking his fist out. 

“Did you get that out of your system?” Ryuzo asked. “Do you feel better now or are you going to hit me again?”

“I should. You fucking deserve it,” Jin said. “But it wouldn’t help.”

“It wouldn’t,” Ryuzo agreed. “Now help me out with this.”

_ ……………………………………………………… _

Jin’s mood didn’t improve. They’d deposited the Kikuchi thug in a prominent place against the lighthouse where he was sure to be found once the sun came up. Ryuzo gave the man one last kick to the ribs for good measure before Jin instructed him to leave and they drove off.

They arrived back at Jin’s apartment just as the sun came up. Ryuzo had followed him home from Kubara, not even bothering to ask if he could impose on Jin. He never did. He leaned against the outside wall smoking a cigarette as Jin fumbled with his keys, frustrated.

“He was a nobody, Jin,” Ryuzo said, blowing out a thin stream of smoke. “You don’t have to worry.”

“One of us needs to,” Jin said shortly, finally getting the door unlocked. 

He let Ryuzo in first, shutting the door after he followed him in and kicked off his shoes off in the  _ genkan _ . Kage met them at the entrance, tail wagging and tongue lolling out. Ryuzo gave him a brief scratch on the head before pushing him away to make his way toward Jin’s kitchen. Jin found him rummaging through the refrigerator like he owned the place.

“You got any beer?” he asked, poking through old cartons of  _ conbini _ take out.

“Ryuzo, it’s morning,” Jin complained.

“Maybe for you,” he said, taking out a half-eaten carton of  _ karaage  _ and sniffing at it. “But I haven’t been to sleep yet, so it’s still night-time for me.”

“That’s your own fault,” Jin chided, finding a clean pair of chopsticks for Ryuzo before he even asked. Ryuzo made a delighted noise as he took the utensils and tucked into the cold  _ karaage _ . “How did a Kikuchi footsolider end up in the trunk of your car, Ryuzo?”

“I told you,” he said around a mouthful of chicken. “He had a very unlucky night.”

Jin fixed him with a glare, nostrils flared in annoyance. Ryuzo had the good grace to look ashamed as he swallowed his bite.

“He was running his mouth about you,” Ryuzo said, all levity gone from his voice. “Called you a coward. Said the Sakai family was run by pussies now that Kazumasa was dead.”

Jin had a hunch that that might have been the case. News of his failure to save his father had spread far and wide across the underworld of Tsushima. Jin had roughed up a few men himself when his loss was fresh and he didn’t know what to do with his rage. But he had his uncle to stop him from taking it any further. Ryuzo had no one except Jin. And Ryuzo could be an idiot when it came to Jin.

“I don’t need you defending me,” Jin said. “Especially against some no-name ground troops from the Kikuchi Family.”

“Tch, you think I’d be rewarded for sticking up for my  _ kyoudai _ ,” Ryuzo huffed as he stuffed another piece of  _ karaage  _ into his mouth. “I’m feeling very underappreciated right now.

“You’ll be rewarded for keeping your head down and following orders,” Jin said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Not needlessly getting into trouble.”

“Yes,  _ mother _ ,” Ryuzo quipped. “Where’s that beer?”

“I’m not giving you beer,” Jin said. He pushed past Ryuzo and pulled out a can of tea from the refrigerator. “You can have this or water. Or nothing at all.”

Ryuzo scowled, but took the tea and popped it open. He took a few deep drinks and Jin watched his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed.

“Not beer, but not bad,” Ryuzo said, licking drops of tea off of his lips.

“Are you sleeping here, then?” Jin asked.

“If you’ll let me,” Ryuzo grinned. Jin rolled his eyes. As if Ryuzo was ever going to do anything but exactly what Ryuzo wanted to do.

“You can have the bed,” Jin said, gesturing toward the door to his bedroom.

“Are you going to come keep me company until I fall asleep?” Ryuzo teased.

“Unlike you,” Jin said. “I have business to attend to this morning. You’ll have the bed to yourself. Unless Kage wants to join you.”

At the sound of his name, Kage gave an excited bark. Ryuzo scowled.

“Boring,” Ryuzo said, stretching his arms behind his head and yawning. He shrugged off his jacket and left it on one of the chairs in the kitchen. He unbuttoned his dress shirt too, folding it in half and placing it on the back of one of the other chairs.

“You finally started on your arms,” Jin commented. Ryuzo looked down at his right arm which was covered to the elbow in the outline of a tattoo. 

“ _ Hannya _ ?”

Ryuzo nodded. 

“It suits you,” Jin said. 

Ryuzo flashed a grin at him and started to unbutton his trousers.

“Please don’t get naked in my kitchen,” Jin griped.

“Where’s the fun Jin I used to know?” Ryuzo pouted. “What was it you said to me and the Adachi boys? ‘A true  _ yakuza  _ needs no clothes?’”

“I was 19 and very,  _ very  _ drunk,” Jin retorted. “Now go to bed before I change my mind about letting you stay here.”

‘Bah,” Ryuzo said, waving him off. “Suit yourself. Come on, Kage. Your dad is being a killjoy.”

He padded off toward Jin’s bedroom with the dog at his heels and shut the door behind him. Jin sank into an empty kitchen chair and groaned.

He supposed that he couldn’t blame Ryuzo for what he did. Ryuzo, being a low ranking yakuza himself wasn’t privy to all of the same information Jin was. He couldn’t have known that Jin’s uncle, Boss Shimura was trying to repair the relationship between the Kikuchi Family and his own.

Jin only hoped that the man Ryuzo’d roughed up had truly been a nobody and that the news wouldn’t make it to his uncle. Boss Shimura had made it clear on multiple occasions that he didn’t much care for Jin’s friendship with Ryuzo. He didn’t outright prevent him letting Jin recruit him into the Sakai Family, but he could and did prevent Ryuzo from rising up through the ranks. Although Jin was now the Patriarch of the Sakai family, he was still a subsidiary of the Shimura family and had to respect his uncle’s wishes. News of this mishap would only strengthen his uncle’s resolve to keep Ryuzo as one of the family’s  _ shatei  _ for as long as he could.

“Damn you, Ryuzo,” he grumbled. “You can’t ever make things easy, can you?”

He envied Ryuzo sometimes. He complained about being stuck in the lower rungs of the Yamato-gumi syndicate, but in a way he was freer than Jin. He didn’t have to worry about living up to expectations. He didn’t have to feel the weight of responsibility that his uncle was slowly easing on him. Ryuzo could stay out until dawn partying while Jin had to worry about waking up in time for meetings. Ryuzo often joked that Jin was becoming a civilian salaryman and more and more Jin felt like he was right.

He missed the days when he and Ryuzo ran the streets of Tsushima as the dragon and the  _ oni _ . They used to get into it with anyone and everyone, the two of them feeding off each other’s energies until they each felt invincible. But that was before the Yarikawa family went rogue. That was before his father was killed.

Jin hadn’t wanted things to change. He’d told Ryuzo they wouldn’t. He’d still take on the world with him every night. But it hadn’t turned out that way. Ryuzo teased him about it, but Jin knew there was some real resentment there simmering beneath the surface. But what could Jin do? He was the Patriarch of his family now and had been for the past five years. He couldn’t run his organization into the ground. He  _ wouldn’t _ .

He sat in the kitchen until he heard Ryuzo’s muffled snores coming through the door of his bedroom. He would be dead to the world for the next few hours. Jin could safely leave the apartment without worrying about him getting into trouble for a while. 

He crept silently into the bedroom and made his way to the adjoining bathroom to shower away the events of the morning. He took his time, standing under the hot water until it ran cold. He took an equally long time shaving and dressing himself. 

Since being promoted to one of his uncle’s  _ shateigashira _ , he took care to look his absolute best every day. He would not shame Boss Shimura by showing up anywhere looking like a common street thug. He knew most of the other patriarchs thought that’s what he was anyway and he would take any opportunity he could to prove them wrong.

He checked himself in the mirror a dozen times to make sure not even a hair was out of place. He had chosen a deep grey suit, the lines of which accentuated his slim yet powerful frame. The tie was dark blue with a subtle grey print of waves reminiscent of a Hokusai woodblock print. His shoes were black, shiny, and so unscuffed they looked as if he’d never worn them before. His hair was slicked back save for one piece that refused to stay put. Jin gave up and let it hang over his eyes; he thought it gave him a roguish charm anyway. 

He finished the look by pinning a small silver emblem on his lapel: the twin mountains of the Sakai family. Now he was armored up and ready for whatever the day had in store for him. He left Ryuzo asleep under the protection of Kage and headed out into the morning sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> moshi moshi- the Japanese way of answering the phone
> 
> karaage- Japanese fried meat, usually chicken
> 
> oni- Japanese creature of folklore similar to am ogre or a demon.


	2. Don't Tell Me I Should Bow

Jin had breakfast with his uncle as often as he could. Hiroto Shimura was a stern man, and very set in his ways. Some might call him cold, but Jin knew better. While he could be aloof and sometimes cruel in his business dealing, he’d always been kind to Jin growing up. Perhaps it was because his wife had given him no children before she passed away, but Shimura always played the role of doting uncle to his sister’s son. 

When Jin’s mother passed and his father sank into a deep depression, his Uncle Shimura stepped up, filling in for Kazumasa until he was ready to be a father again. He stayed close to the family throughout Jin’s boyhood and subsequent coming of age. When his father was killed, Shimura was the one who helped Jin quell his rage and pick up the pieces of his life. Boss Shimura was a generous man and his love for his nephew ran deep. Jin would not disappoint him by acting the ingrate.

Shimura lived in a Japanese style house on a large estate rather than the nice apartments his subordinates lived in. Jin had free reign of the place since he was 6 and knew all the ins and outs of the grounds. He never bothered coming in through the front gates like every other one of his uncle’s visitors. Instead, he came in through the hidden entrance in the rear, the one reserved for Shimura himself when he wanted to come and go without being watched.

“You’re up early this morning,” Shimura said as Jin walked up to the back veranda of the house.

Shimura was sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed, bathing in the morning sun. He was in a pair of sweatpants and an undershirt and Jin’s eyes raked across the old, faded tattoos on his uncle’s skin: regal hawks flying over mountains and snarling  _ oni  _ like the one tattooed across Jin’s back. Shimura’s back was facing the house, but Jin knew he’d find a fierce samurai wielding a  _ katana _ menacingly inked there in the skin.

“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” Jin said. “I thought you’d be finished with your morning meditation by now.”

“I am,” Shimura said, opening his eyes. He graced his nephew with a smile. “But the sun felt nice. And I had a feeling you would come to visit this morning.”

Jin offered his arm to help his uncle up, more out of politeness than anything. Shimura was only in his mid 50s and still in excellent shape for his age. However, he let his nephew pull him up to his feet. Then he led Jin into the main room of the house where a member of Shimura’s house staff had already set breakfast out on the low floor table. They clapped their hands together and said the customary “ _ itadakimasu _ ” and tucked in.

The spread was traditional: white rice with a raw egg cracked over it, grilled salted mackerel, miso soup, and pickled vegetables. Jin rarely ate more than a protein bar in the morning when left to his own devices, but his uncle was a very particular man who believed in doing things right or not at all.They ate the meal in a comfortable silence until Shimura, having finished eating first put down his chopsticks and folded his hands on the table in front of him.

“Jin, you look terrible.”

Jin snorted into the bowl of miso soup he’d just brought to his lips. Shimura laughed apologetically as Jin put the bowl down and wiped at his nose.

“I suppose I could have timed that one better.”

“I suppose you could have,” Jin replied a bit sullenly. However, his uncle just gave him an apologetic smile.

“I meant it though,” he said. “You haven’t been sleeping well, have you?”

“Does anyone get enough sleep these days?” Jin asked nonchalantly, setting his own chopsticks down on their rests. He had hoped to get out of the conversation that he knew was coming.

“You used to be able to stay out until the break of dawn and still show up to breakfast fresh-faced and bright,” Shimura continued. “You look ragged now. Too thin.”

“Oh no,” Jin said, making a face. “It’s finally happened. I’ve gotten  _ old _ .”

“You  _ know  _ what I mean, Jin,” his uncle said, not rising to the bait. “You’ve been dreaming of Kazumasa again, haven’t you?”

Jin lowered his eyes. That was confirmation enough for his uncle.

“Jin, you were a child,” his uncle started.

“I was 18,” he interrupted.

“A  _ child _ ,” Shimura continued. “Barely out of highschool. You’d only just been made  _ yakuza _ . You couldn’t be expected to save him. Not with the whole Yarikawa family in your way.”

Jin kept his eyes down and set his jaw firmly. He and Shimura had had this conversation many times, but there was nothing his uncle could say that would convince him that he couldn’t have done something to change the way things ended. If he’d have run a little faster, fought a little harder. Then maybe his father would still be alive. Then Jin wouldn’t have to worry about being the head of his family. He wouldn’t have all of this stress. He wouldn’t be eaten up with guilt.

“You did admirably making it as far as you did,” Shimura said. “Your father would have been proud.”

“I would rather him be alive,” Jin muttered before he could stop himself. Thankfully, his uncle chose to ignore his insolence.

“There’s no use dwelling on it,” he said. “That way lies madness, Jin. He’s gone now and the only thing left to do is move forward. 

He’d been told that a hundred times. He tried, he honestly had. He worked hard to honor his father’s legacy and have the Sakai family’s name command the same amount of respect it had when his father was the patriarch. He pushed himself as hard as he could, but he still saw his father’s bloated face most nights when he closed his eyes. How could he move on when the ghost of his father still haunted his dreams?

They remained silent as his uncle’s staff cleared away the remnants of their breakfast. Jin was still in a bad mood from his morning excursion with Ryuzo and the talk with his uncle had only made it worse. The telephone rang (Shimura was the only person Jin knew that still had a landline) and his uncle excused himself to answer it, leaving Jin alone with his thoughts on the floor cushion.

It wasn’t long before he heard his uncle’s voice raise from the other room. He strained his ears to hear what he was saying, but after his initial outburst, Shimura had lowered his voice to a menacing hiss. Jin knew that voice. Someone beneath him had fucked up. Jin felt his heart drop into his stomach; he had a good idea who it was.

Shimura came back into the room carrying himself differently than before. This was not the kindly uncle Jin had breakfast with. This was Hiroto Shimura, patriarch of the Shimura family and  _ wakagashira  _ to Koreyasu Yamato, head of the entire Yamato-gumi Syndicate. Jin had seen his uncle like this many times, but had never himself been on the receiving end of one of his withering looks.

“I just got an interesting phone call from Kikuchi-san,” Shimura said quietly.

Jin could feel his stomach churn anxiously, but he said nothing. Over the years, he had seen his uncle disciplining many of his subordinates. He learned it was better to face Shimura’s wrath with dignity than to try to deny any wrong-doing and avoid blame. Although there was a storm raging in his gut, Jin kept a straight back and a stoic face.

“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about one of his men being found tied up at the Kubara lighthouse, would you?” Shimura asked, voice still dangerously low. 

Jin would not deny it. He couldn’t lie to his uncle anyway. Shimura always knew.

“Ryuzo had an unfortunate encounter with one of his thugs last night,” Jin said. 

“Did you ask him to rough up one of Kikuchi-san’s men?” his uncle asked, accusingly.

“No,” Jin replied, knowing the response he would get. “He did that on his own.”

“Damn it, Jin,” Shimura said, slamming his fist down on the low table. To Jin’s credit, he didn’t flinch. He knew his uncle would think less of him if he did. “I warned you about that Tanaka boy. He is unruly and has been since he was a child. But you’re not children anymore. You need to discipline your dog or he will be your ruin.”

Jin felt himself bristle at the way his uncle spoke about Ryuzo. He’d allowed Jin to carry on a friendship with him as a child, but he never liked him. Ryuzo came from a _burakumin_ family and, even though caste hadn’t mattered for over a hundred years, Shimura never forgot it. The Shimura and Sakai families could trace their lineage back to the ruling samurai classes of the Kamakura period and most of the other families that were subsidiaries of Shimura had similar pedigrees. This was a rarity for most modern _yakuza_ and it was something Shimura took pride in. The rebelliousness he might have forgiven in other young _yakuza_ was something he held against Ryuzo because he had not descended from nobility.

“Kikuchi’s man said that the Tanaka boy had help at the lighthouse,” his uncle continued. “Was that you?”

“Yes,” Jin answered shortly. He could see Shimura’s nostrils flare as his face took on a crimson hue.

“You know better than to involve yourself in that boy’s foolishness,” he said. “Especially in regards to feuding with other families. You  _ know  _ we are trying to form an alliance with the Kikuchi family and you let yourself be dragged into it anyway.”

“I didn’t know what Ryuzo called me for until I got there,” Jin protested.

“You should have made him tell you before you agreed to meet him,” Shimura interrupted hotly. “ _ You _ are the patriarch of Clan Sakai, not Ryuzo. You should not be at his beck and call.”

Jin’s hands were balled into fists as they rested on his knees, clenched so hard his knuckles turned white. But he would not raise his voice to his uncle, no matter how much he wanted to. His uncle had a point. He outranked his friend by a large degree within the organization. And Ryuzo was his  _ shatei _ ; he shouldn’t have acted on his own without orders from Jin or someone higher. The fact that his uncle was right in this instance made him all the more angry.

“Jin,” he said, his voice taking on a softer tone now. Jin looked up and saw that it was his uncle talking again, not Boss Shimura. “I’m only telling you this for your own good. I won’t be around forever. I have no sons and you will one day absorb all of the Shimura family’s power into the Sakai family.”

Jin felt his stomach flutter the way he always did when his uncle talked about his future. Being in his early 30s, Jin was still relatively young to be a family patriarch and the idea of taking on even more power and responsibility within the Yamato-Gumi syndicate was daunting. He almost didn’t want it, but he would never admit that aloud.

“If you continue to let your subordinates do as they please, your  _ shateigashira  _ will not respect you,” he said. “You saw first-hand what can happen when one of your underlings starts to lose respect for you, starts to forget that  _ you  _ are the one wielding the power.”

He did not need to mention the Yarikawa family again for Jin to understand. Tokiasa Yarikawa, one of Shimura’s subordinates, staged a failed coup when Jin was 18 that resulted in many deaths, one of which had been Jin’s father, Kazumasa Sakai. It had been a shit-show. The  _ kumicho  _ himself had come in from the mainland to set things straight. Tokiasa had been executed and his sons excommunicated. The rest of his family had been broken up and divided between the Shimura, Sakai, Adachi, and Nagao families. Many people lost their pinkies to  _ yubitsume _ . Boss Shimura had been very careful not to let something like that happen again.

“I know, uncle,” Jin said, lowering his eyes again.

“I know you have a soft spot for the Tanaka boy,” Shimura continued. “And I am grateful that you had him to lean on in the aftermath of your father’s death. But you are older now. You need to look to your future, and your friendship with him will only hold you back. This business is not a child’s game. There is a very real chance that that boy’s carelessness could cost you your life one day.”

_ Ryuzo’s older than me _ , Jin thought.  _ He’s not a boy any more than I am _ .

“I’ll speak with him, uncle,” Jin said. “Make him apologize to Kikuchi-san if I have to.”

“That’s a start,” Shimura said with a frown. “It was one of his foot soldiers, so an apology should be enough.”

Jin could tell that Shimura wanted to make him do more. Wanted to order him to remove Ryuzo from the Sakai Family’s payroll entirely. Shimura would have been well within his rights to do so, but he’d yet to ask that of his nephew. For that small kindness, Jin was grateful.

“Ryuzo will take direction,” Jin said. “I just need to be more firm with him.”

“I hope for your sake, you are right,” his uncle answered. 

_ ……………………………………………………… _

Jin spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon seeing to his business dealings. The Sakai family ran a large number of establishments that, to the average person, seemed on the up and up. However, the majority of them were fronts for money laundering schemes and drug running. Jin trusted the underlings that ran his businesses for the most part, but he also knew it was important to make his presence known, to remind everyone that he was watching for something to go wrong. It was one of the many lessons he’d learned from his uncle and his father when he was still alive.

It was exhausting, however. By the time he’d left the last business, he was really feeling his lack of sleep. Jin knew he still looked polished, but his head hurt and his body felt like it would give out any minute. He was ready to eat his dinner and fall into bed early. He’d forgotten he left Ryuzo at his apartment until he trudged up the stairs and heard a loud, booming bass coming from the direction of his front door.

The music assaulted his ears as he stepped into the  _ genkan _ . He found Ryuzo in the kitchen dressed only in a pair of Jin’s boxers, whipping up some suspect looking food. Kage was standing by his feet, tail wagging as he waited patiently for Ryuzo to inevitably drop something on the floor for him to lick up. 

“Ryuzo,” Jin had to practically yell to be heard over the music. “Turn that down. The neighbors will complain!”

“Let them,” Ryuzo said nonchalantly as he stirred whatever it was he had in the bowl in front of him.

Annoyed, Jin stomped over to the stereo system and turned the volume off. Ryuzo didn’t even look up, which only annoyed Jin further. 

“I see your mood hasn’t improved,” he said, using a spoon to taste what was in his bowl. He made a face, then held the spoon out for Kage to lick clean.

“It’s been a long day,” Jin said. “And it didn’t exactly start out great.”

“Are you still mad about that,” Ryuzo asked. “That was  _ hours _ ago.”

“Kikuchi called my uncle this morning at breakfast,” Jin said. 

“Oh shit,” Ryuzo looked up in shock and for a split second, Jin saw genuine fear in his eyes. “I could have sworn that guy was a nobody.”

“He was,” Jin said. “But Kikuchi was still mad. And so was my uncle.”

Ryuzo finally looked ashamed of himself. As often as he wished for Ryuzo to feel remorse, It didn’t make Jin feel as good as he thought it would.

“Did I get you in trouble?”

“No,” he said, sinking into one of the kitchen chairs and taking off his tie. “My uncle does want you to make an official apology to the Kikuchi family, though.”

“Tch,” Ryuzo frowned. Jin gave him a warning look and he relented.

“ _ Fine _ . I’ll apologize tomorrow,” he said.

“ _ Tonight _ ,” Jin corrected him.

“I don’t want to do business tonight,” Ryuzo groaned. 

“It won’t take long,” Jin said. “Whatever you have planned can wait until you’ve made amends with Kikuchi.”

Ryuzo pouted, but kept silent. Jin knew he’d won out. 

Jin leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, a poor attempt to fight off his headache.

“I trust you’re going to stay out of trouble tonight, yes?” he finally asked.

“Define ‘trouble.’”

“ _ Ryuzo _ .”

“Yes, I’m going to stay out of trouble,” Ryuzo replied. “But only if you come out with me tonight.”

“Absolutely not,” Jin said. “I’m exhausted.”

“But you haven’t been out in ages,” Ryuzo whined. “I  _ know _ you don’t have anything going on tomorrow. You can sleep then.”

He probably would sleep most of the next day if he wasn’t troubled by nightmares again. But Jin couldn’t guarantee that he wouldn’t dream of his father again.

“Come on, you little punk bitch. It’ll be fun,” Ryuzo teased. “The dragon and the  _ oni _ , just like old times.”

They’d gotten the nicknames in their younger years when they were more prone to ending up in shirtless street fights. Ryuzo had a sinuous dragon with mad, rolling eyes on his back and Jin had a fierce, fanged  _ oni _ . They got into a lot of trouble back then, their half-finished tattoos gleaming under the streetlights. It had been years since those days. To Jin, though, it felt like a lifetime.

“I promise I’ll behave myself if you come out,” Ryuzo continued.

“I don’t believe you,” Jin said.

“I’ll be an  _ angel _ .”

In spite of himself, Jin lifted one corner of his mouth in a sly grin.

“Do you remember the last time you promised that?” he asked. His voice had taken on deep timber that hadn’t been present before.

“I do,” Ryuzo said, grinning back at him. His eyes flashed wickedly. “And I seem to remember you not having any complaints about how things turned out.”

He certainly  _ hadn’t _ . They’d been drunk, very drunk. Jin remembered teeth and hands fumbling in the darkness. He felt a fluttering in his stomach thinking of it.

“Alright,” Jin said and Ryuzo triumphantly pumped his fist. “I’ll go out with you tonight. But you have to let me get some rest first. Don’t turn the music back up. And don’t burn down my kitchen with whatever  _ that  _ is.”

“On my honor,” Ryuzo swore.

“What honor?”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck  _ you _ .”

Ryuzo grinned at Jin, then waved him away toward his bedroom.

“Alright, Sleeping Beauty,” he said. “Get your rest. Kage and I will finish up here. Then I  _ promise _ to go give a formal apology to the Kikuchis before swinging by later to pick you up. Let’s say 9, yeah?”

Jin got up and started to walk toward his bedroom, but stopped and turned back to Ryuzo. He took a second to run his eyes over him, taking in the sight of the half-inked  _ hannya _ on his arms and the regal dragon on his back. Ryuzo sensed him watching and looked up, giving Jin a lewd grin.

“Be sure and wash my boxers before you give them back, Ryuzo.”

“Who says I’m giving them back?” Ryuzo asked.

“You will or I’m staying home tonight.”

“You hear that, Kage,” Ryuzo turned to the dog at his feet. “That’s called an empty threat. Your dad loves to make them.”

“I’m serious,” Jin said, opening the door to his bedroom. “Wash them.”

“Go to bed, Jin,” Ryuzo replied. “Before I decide to come in there after you.”

“I’ll see you at 9,” Jin said. And he shut the door before Ryuzo could distract him any further.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wakagashira- lieutenant directly under the yakuza clan leader
> 
> burakumin- an "untouchable" caste of people from Japan's feudal era.
> 
> shateigashira- a middling yakuza lieutenant in charge of the kyodai (brothers)
> 
> kumicho- yakuza leader/kingpin
> 
> yubitsume- "finger shortening", a punishment for yakuza members where the tip of the pinky finger is cut off and presented to the boss in atonement for a mistake


	3. So Fluorescent Under These Lights

Jin slept like the dead, a blessed dreamless sleep, and nine o’clock came too soon. He groggily rolled out of bed when he heard Ryuzo slam the front door shut. Kage immediately started whining to be let out of the bedroom.

“Jin are you awake?” Ryuzo called out loudly. Jin cursed himself for letting Ryuzo have a spare key.

“Oh, you look  _ beautiful _ ,” Ryuzo grinned as Jin lumbered out of his bedroom, Kage at his heels. 

Ryuzo was wearing one of the nicest suits he owned. It was black and flashy, clearly something only a _yakuza_ would wear. If the coloring and style of the suit weren’t enough to give him away, Ryuzo hadn’t bothered to fasten the collar of his burgundy dress-shirt, allowing for glimpses of the _hikae_ piece on his chest. Jin, on the other hand, looked disheveled. His hair was sticking up every which way, his pajamas were wrinkled, and he had a sour taste in his mouth.

“Is it too late to decide not to go?” Jin asked around a yawn.

“Way too late,” Ryuzo said. 

He rummaged through a plastic bag he was carrying and tossed a can of something cold in Jin’s direction. It was a testament to how good Jin’s reflexes were that he caught it through the haze of sleep he was still wallowing in. He blearily peered down at it and saw that it was an energy drink.

“Drink that up and get ready,” Ryuzo said. “And let’s take your car.”

Jin groaned, but popped open the tab of the drink and took a few large swigs. He made a face at the taste, but kept drinking anyway.

“What’s wrong with your car?” he asked.

“Yours is sexier,” Ryuzo replied.

“We don’t need a sexy car to drive out to a club,” Jin said. “I’m assuming that’s what we’re doing tonight.”

“Yes we  _ do _ ,” Ryuzo said, greatly offended that Jin would suggest the opposite. “What if we decide to bring some girls back tonight?”

“If they’ve already decided to come home with us, I don’t think a car is going to change their minds,” Jin grumbled.

“Oh, Jin,” Ryuzo said, almost pityingly. He walked over to and grasped Jin’s face in his hands like he was a child. “You beautiful, rich idiot. You truly don’t know what it’s like for the rest of us.”

Jin batted him away and took another swig of the drink. He was starting to feel more alert already.

“You seem to do just fine without me,” Jin said. 

“Well obviously, the car isn’t  _ everything _ ,” Ryuzo said, waving him off and turning to give Kage a scratch behind the ears. “I’m very attractive and charming. That can go a long way.”

Jin rolled his eyes, but didn’t argue. Ryuzo had charmed his way out of Jin’s anger hundreds of times inthe past. And he was undeniably handsome.

“But that’s beside the point,” Ryuzo said. “Come on, let’s take your car. I won’t even ask to drive it.”

“Yes you will.”

“Yes,” Ryuzo conceded. “I will. But we should take it anyway.”

Jin frowned and thought about what his uncle said to him over breakfast. He was very indulgent with Ryuzo and he always had been. They’d been friends since elementary school. They were practically brothers. They were  _ more  _ than brothers. He knew that one day he would have to rein in Ryuzo. But he didn’t have the heart to do it tonight.

“Alright,” Jin sighed. “We can take my car.”

Ryuzo’s smile lit up his entire face and Jin felt a wave of affection wash over him.

“Hurry, hurry,” he said, herding Jin back toward his bedroom. “You’re awake, now get ready.”

Jin brushed his teeth as Ryuzo disappeared into his closet to pick out Jin’s clothes for the night. There was a brief argument over whether or not Jin had time to take a shower, which Ryuzo lost. Jin emerged clean and much more awake than he had been previously. The suit Ryuzo chose for Jin was similar to his own. Black, but with a navy shirt instead of maroon. 

“Ryuzo,” Jin complained. “We look like  _ yakuza sentai _ .”

Ryuzo barked a laugh and Kage wagged his tail, excited by the commotion.

“We’ll get Kage here a matching suit in yellow,” Ryuzo said. “Then we’ll have a full  _ sentai  _ set. What do you say to that, boy?”

Kage’s tongue lolled out in response.

Jin had to admit, though, they each cut a fine figure standing next to each other once he’d dressed. Ryuzo looked wildly dangerous with his artfully messy hair and open collar. Jin looked more polished but equally as sharp with his hair slicked back and collar stiff. They would turn heads tonight, just as they used to when they were younger.

Jin was futilely trying to comb back the one stray hair from his forehead that never seemed to behave itself when Ryuzo crowded into his space.

“Come on, pretty boy,” he said, slinging an arm around his shoulder. “You look fine. Let’s  _ go _ .”

_ ……………………………………………………… _

They were ushered into the club without having to wait very long (a perk of the club’s owner being indebted to the Shimura Family). They had their own private booth in the VIP area and their first bottle of booze was on the house. The music pulsed around them, assaulting Jin’s ears even from the VIP lounge. Ryuzo looked like he was in his element. Jin wanted to go home.

“You look like someone spit in your drink,” Ryuzo said, knocking back a shot. Jin could hardly hear him over the din around them.

“I forgot how  _ loud  _ these places were,” Jin replied. Ryuzo rolled his eyes so hard that Jin could almost hear it, even over the music.

“ _ Drink _ ,” Ryuzo said, pushing a shot into his hand. “You’ll feel better.”

Jin highly doubted that, but he took the glass from Ryuzo’s hand.

“ _ Kanpai _ ,” Ryuzo said, clinking his shot glass against Jin’s.

“ _ Kanpai _ ,” Jin repeated.

They threw their drinks back at the same time. The whiskey was sweet and burned Jin’s throat on the way down in the most delicious way. 

“That’s the good stuff,” Ryuzo said, smacking his lips. 

He immediately poured another shot and Jin didn’t protest too hard before taking it. He had planned on taking it sort of slow tonight, but once Ryuzo got going, it was hard to make him stop. Half the bottle was gone before he knew it and Jin was feeling warmed to his core and deliciously loose. He found he didn’t mind the omnipresent pump of the bass in his ears anymore. Ryuzo was watching him with dark, hooded eyes and Jin felt something start to uncurl in his stomach. There were promises in those eyes and Jin shivered to think of them. It had been  _ far  _ too long.

They never spoke about what they did in the dark sometimes. It didn’t happen often and it never happened while they were sober. Jin could never remember which of them instigated it as they’d groped at each other in the wee hours of the morning that first time. But he knew that every other time it happened, he was as much to blame as Ryuzo was. Jin liked being with women, but he liked being with Ryuzo too. But if Ryuzo wasn’t going to talk about it-- and Ryuzo talked about  _ everything _ \-- then Jin wasn’t either. He didn’t want to make things weird by bringing up any complicated feelings he may have been harboring on the matter.

“I brought a surprise,” Ryuzo said with a grin as he reached into the pocket of his suit jacket. 

Jin raised an eyebrow until he saw the small bag of white powder Ryuzo flashed before tucking it back in his suit. Instinctively, Jin’s eyes shot around him, checking to make sure nobody saw. But they were relatively safe in the VIP area and no one was looking their way. Part of him wanted to lecture Ryuzo for flashing around cocaine, even if Boss Shimura’s people did have the owner of the club under his thumb. But part of him also  _ really _ wanted to snort lines with Ryuzo in the bathroom. 

They crowded into the last stall of the men’s room in the VIP lounge and Ryuzo immediately began portioning out lines on the toilet seat with an old train card.

“This is disgusting,” Jin said.

“Oh, shut up,” Ryuzo said. “You miss this.”

And he did. In the years since becoming the patriarch of the Sakai Family, Jin had tried his best to emulate his uncle. This meant clean living for the most part, aside from drinks and smokes. Drugs dulled the mind and clouded your judgement. Shimura counseled Jin to remain vigilant and in control of himself at all time, but damn, if he didn’t miss the rush.

“Fuck,” Jin said, rubbing at his nose as he felt the drug course through his system. “That’s good shit.”

“Right?” Ryuzo said with a laugh. “There’s more if you want some. Got it ‘specially for our boy’s night out.”

Jin rolled his eyes, but couldn’t keep the grin off of his face. He felt invincible, and he didn’t think it was solely because of the cocaine. Ryuzo had a habit of bringing this side of him out. It was dangerous. It was exhilarating. It was unfair that Jin had to be an adult instead of feeling like this all the time.

He could feel his heart racing deliciously as they tumbled out of the bathroom and made their way down to the floor. Jin had predicted they would turn heads that night and they did. Their appearances telegraphed pretty clearly to everyone that they were  _ yakuza _ , and Jin could see many people shy away from them. But just as many looked interested.

“ _ Oi _ ,” Ryuzo said, raising his voice to be heard over the din around them. “Let’s go dance.”

Jin shook his head and smiled as he clapped Ryuzo on the back.

“No amount of drugs in the world could get me to do that,” Jin replied.

“Bah,” Ryuzo said, waving him off. “You’re a bad dancer anyway. You’ll just scare all the girls off.”

Jin watched as Ryuzo made his way to the dance floor like he owned the place. He had zero inhibitions on a good day, and with the coke in his system, he had even less. He moved with the fluid grace of a snake and Jin’s eyes lingered on his hips just a bit too long. When he tore his eyes away, he noticed that he was being watched as well.

The woman was dressed almost modestly compared to the other women in the club, in a vermilion and black asymmetrical mini-dress and knee-high black boots. Her dark hair was pulled back simply in a ponytail with a few strands falling into her face rather than piled up and curled. She looked older than many of the other women bouncing around on the dance floor, although Jin contributed that to the fact that she wasn’t trying to look younger like they were. She had a wide face with sharp cheekbones and a nose that was just a bit too broad to be fashionable. 

But even so, she was striking standing there under the pulsing lights of the club, watching Jin with an indecipherable grin on her face. Jin gave a hesitant grin back and she turned away to walk toward the bar, peering once over her shoulder to make sure he followed. Jin shot a look at Ryuzo (who was too wrapped up with the three women he was dancing in the middle of) and stalked off after her.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d follow,” she said as he sidled up next to her. Her voice was deep for a woman’s, and smooth. “You seemed to be paying a lot of attention to your  _ yakuza  _ friend.”

The tone in her voice said she knew he’d been watching the movements of Ryuzo’s hips. But he wouldn’t rise to that bait.

“Just watching to make sure he doesn’t get into trouble,” Jin said.

“Is that so?” the woman said skeptically. “Well, then, are you sure you want to leave him out there on his own?”

“I’ll risk it,” Jin said. And he was rewarded with another of the woman’s cryptic smiles. “I’m Jin.”

“Yuna,” she replied. “And I’ll be drinking an  _ umeshu  _ tonic if you’re offering to buy.”

Jin flagged down the bartender and ordered a tonic for Yuna and a highball for himself. They clinked their glasses together in a toast before each taking a sip. Jin watched her over the rim of his glass and almost felt the electricity between them. Or maybe that was the coke.

“So,” Yuna said, swirling her drink around in her glass as she licked a droplet off  _ umeshu  _ off of her lips. “You look pretty straight-laced for a  _ yakuza _ . Especially to be out partying with  _ that _ one.”

“Who says I’m  _ yakuza  _ too?”

“Your tattoo is poking out of your sleeve,” she said.

Without thinking, Jin shot his eyes toward his wrist and he heard her laugh. It was a rich sound and it sent a bolt of lightning down his spine. 

“I was kidding,” she said. “But that confirms my suspicions.”

Jin felt the color rise to his cheeks a bit and he took another sip of his drink.

“A  _ yakuza  _ that can still blush,” she said, eyes sparkling merrily. “Haven’t come across one of those before. Most of the ones I’ve met are like your friend out there.”

“I don’t know many civilians that would have the guts to tease a  _ yakuza  _ to his face,” Jin said. But he wasn’t angry; rather, it was sort of refreshing to get a reaction from someone that wasn’t outright fear or groupie-like idolization. 

“Ooh,  _ ‘civilian’ _ ,” Yuna repeated in a slightly mocking tone. “Is that supposed to intimidate me?”

“Depends,” Jin said, taking another sip of his drink. “Is it working?”

“Not even a little bit.” she answered.

Jin chuckled and Yuna looked pleased with herself. 

“You know,” she continued. “I’ve seen your friend here before, but never you.”

“I had to be dragged out tonight,” he confessed.

“A  _ yakuza  _ who blushes and who doesn’t like to party,” she said, counting them out on her fingers like a list. “One more strike against you and I’ll think you’re not actually  _ yakuza _ .”

“You can think whatever you want to think,” he said. “Besides, I never actually  _ said  _ I was  _ yakuza _ .”

“That’s true,” she conceded. “But you do dress like one. And you came in with that crazy fuck who likes to brag about it all the time. What’s a woman to think?”

Jin was taken aback by her language, but he didn’t hate it. The vulgarity reminded him of Ryuzo, which excited him a little. He didn’t want to think too hard about what that meant.

“You know, if I know my friend, he’ll probably be out there a while,” Jin said, gesturing toward the dance floor with his drink. “We’ve got a booth in the VIP lounge. It would probably be more comfortable than standing here. We can get better liquor too.”

“You had me at ‘better liquor,’” Yuna said, throwing back the rest of her drink. Jin was impressed. That tonic was more of a sipping drink than a shooting one and it didn’t seem to phase her.

Jin quickly discovered that Yuna was not an ordinary woman. She matched him drink for drink, and Jin had a sneaking suspicion she could have outpaced him if she really wanted to. She didn’t put on a pseudo-innocent act for him. She was unapologetically abrasive and had no qualms about getting under his skin with her teasing.

Jin liked her very much. He liked the way she looked in her dress and boots. He liked the way she sprawled in the booth like she belonged there. And he liked the way she subtly began to scoot her body toward his with every drink they shared. He’d long since come down from the coke he’d snorted earlier, but he still felt wired, though he’d had enough to drink that he should have been sleepy. There was a delicious tension in the air between them and Jin could feel his body moving almost of its own accord.

Her lips were soft, her mouth hot and sweet from the liquor. She slipped her hand in the collar of his shirt as she kissed him and pulled away to give him a wry look as she revealed the ink curling around his collar bone. 

“ _ Yakuza _ ,” she said triumphantly.

Jin grabbed at her wrist, slipping it out of his collar to cover his skin again.

“Nobody cares,” she said, tugging the collar open again. 

Jin inhaled sharply as she leaned down to suck a mark into fair skin just to the right of the tattoo line. It went straight to his dick and he knew she could feel it with the way she was pressed up against him.

“And besides,” she continued, sliding sideways into his lap. “I’ve already decided to go home with you tonight. Knowing you’re a criminal isn’t going to change that.”

_ ……………………………………………………… _

Ryuzo looked especially pleased when Jin dragged him off the dance floor. But when he realized Jin was slipping his keys into his pocket and not his hands down his pants, he frowned.

“You slink off for, like, ten hours and then come to tell me you’re leaving early?” Ryuzo demanded. “Without me?”

“It hasn’t been ten hours,” Jin said. “And besides. Something came up.”

He subtly indicated for Ryuzo to look over his shoulder where Yuna was waiting for him. Ryuzo, being the most unsubtle person on the face of the planet, was very obvious as he gave her a once-over.

“You’re a piece of shit,” Ryuzo said.

“I thought you might say that,” Jin replied. “So I prepaid your tab for the night.”

“I’m buying everyone in this place fucking top shelf booze all night,” Ryuzo threatened.

“Have fun,” Jin said, clapping him on the shoulder. “And don’t fuck anyone in my car.”

Jin did feel bad as he left Ryuzo pouting on the side of the dance floor. Part of him had been excited about the prospect of fooling around with Ryuzo that night, but then Yuna had literally and metaphorically crawled into his lap. He wasn’t foolish enough to turn that away. It had been too long since he’d fallen into bed with Ryuzo. It had been even longer since he’d fallen into bed with a woman.

He and Yuna pawed at each other in the back of the cab, which he could tell made the driver uncomfortable. But Jin was beyond caring at that point. Yuna palmed him through the fabric of his slacks and he had a hand fully inside the neckline of her dress.

“How tattooed are you?” she whispered hotly into his ear. “Does it go all the way to your cock?”

Jin had to bite down on her neck to suppress his groan.

Jin tipped the driver very well when they got to his apartment. She came up behind him and slipped her hand into the front of his pants as he fumbled with the front door. 

“Patience,” he cautioned, although every part of him was screaming to fuck her against the front door, neighbors be damned.

Kage was on the alert as they stumbled into the  _ genkan _ . Yuna hadn’t been expecting him to have a dog, especially not a wolf-like  _ shikoku inu _ like Kage. Jin wondered briefly if she would be frightened, but she rolled with it, coaxing Kage to her for a quick scratch behind the ears. 

_ Some guard dog you are _ , Jin thought.

Then Yuna was on him again and he didn’t have time to think about anything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hikae- Literally "chest plate". It's the piece of the tattoo that curls over the shoulder and goes over the pectoral muscles of the chest.
> 
> Umeshu- Plum wine. Not actually a wine but a liqueur.
> 
> Also, quick note on the boys' suits. They're simple black suits, which might not be flashy to western audiences. However, black means death in Japan, so people tend not to wear them unless they are going to a funeral. Or they're yakuza. I think the attitudes on this are starting to change, but from what I've read, this seems to be largely still the case? Someone correct me if I'm wrong.


	4. Don't Act Like You Forgot

Jin woke up at lunch time with a killer hangover. It took him a few minutes to get his bearings as he tried to ignore the pounding in his head. He was naked, which meant he had gone to bed with someone the night before, and he was alone, which meant he hadn’t gone to bed with Ryuzo. He remembered smooth, golden skin contrasting with the colorful ink of his tattoos and the feel of a woman’s body in his arms.  _ Yuna _ . Her name had been Yuna.

He slipped out of bed on unsteady feet and pulled on a pair of shorts. As he opened the door to his bedroom, he was assaulted by the light spilling into the windows of his apartment and almost hissed at it like a cat. He rushed over to all the windows and shut the blinds as quickly as he could. It was still far too bright for his liking, but dim enough that he didn’t feel like he might literally die. Next, he took stock of his surroundings. His apartment was empty, save for Kage, who was on the couch pouting. The dog was used to sleeping in Jin’s bed and was very annoyed that Jin hadn’t let him the room the night before.

“Yuna?” he called out tentatively, but he got no response.

He hadn’t really expected her to be there when he woke up, but despite that, he was disappointed. He’d had a great time with her last night, even before she’d gone home with him. Of course, he’d liked fucking her, too. So much so that he wouldn’t have minded if it became a regular thing. But now she was gone and he had no way of even contacting her; there could be thousands of Yunas on Tsushima. He did recall her mentioning that she recognized Ryuzo, and he briefly entertained the idea of asking him if he’d recognized her as well. But when he remembered the way he left Ryuzo the night before, he quickly abandoned that thought.

He’d been so concerned with taking Yuna home that it hadn’t hit him how much of an asshole he’d been to Ryuzo until just now. He was the one who had orchestrated the whole night and Jin had blown him off entirely. Ryuzo was going to be  _ pissed _ . He did stupid things when he was pissed, and because Jin was the one was behind it all, it wouldn’t be easy to talk him down.  _ Shit _ .

He stumbled around his apartment, searching desperately for wherever his phone had ended up in the night, all the while, fighting the urge to vomit up all the liquor he’d had the night before. He eventually found it, kicked far underneath his bed, the battery dangerously low. He had zero missed calls or texts, which was good. It meant Ryuzo hadn’t done anything he needed bailing out of. But it also meant Ryuzo was extremely angry; usually he was constantly bombarding Jin with messages at all hours of the night.

Jin crawled out from beneath his bed and plugged his phone into its charger. Then he ran to the bathroom and  _ did  _ throw up. He brushed his teeth, trying to rid his mouth of the foul taste. He’d gotten himself into this mess and now he’d have to get himself out of it. His uncle’s voice briefly ran through his mind, telling him that Jin shouldn’t bend over backwards to try and appease one of his subordinates, but he pushed it out of his mind. Ryuzo was his friend as well as one of his  _ shatei _ . He deserved better than that.

_ ……………………………………………………… _

Yuna slipped out of Jin’s apartment before dawn. She’d never fucked a  _ yakuza  _ before. Her mother, horrible in her own right, had always warned against it and it was the one piece of advice Yuna had taken to heart before the old bitch died. Most of the  _ yakuza  _ she met were obnoxious anyway, loud hoodlums with huge egos that were inversely proportional to the size of their dicks. She never had any desire to go to bed with one of them before. But Jin had been different.

Before she saw the tattoo, she wasn’t 100% sure he even was  _ yakuza _ , although every part of the way he was dressed, the amount of money he was spending, and the friend he came in with screamed that he was. He’d been more subdued, letting her talk just as much as he did instead of trying to talk over her. That was rare, even for a regular guy, much less a  _ yakuza _ .

She’s been surprised by him in bed, too. Considering how much they booze they’d shared, Jin had lasted a lot longer than she thought he would. And he’d gone out of his way to make sure he wasn’t the only one getting off.  _ That _ had been a shock to her, although not one she was mad about. She wasn’t mad about any of it, really.

She almost felt bad about slipping out before he woke up.  _ Almost _ . As enjoyable as the night had been, she reminded herself that he was a criminal. It was alright for her to slum it up with him for the night, but she didn’t have to feel guilty for leaving without saying goodbye. And besides, if she was there when he woke up, she might be tempted to let him buy her breakfast. Yuna didn’t have time for breakfast.

She made it across town to the apartment she shared with her brother just in time for a quick change of clothes before her morning shift at the shop she worked at. Her brother was sitting at the table, eating breakfast and reading an old  _ manga _ . When he saw that she was wearing the same thing she’d left the house in the night before, he gave her a judgmental look.

“Don’t even start, Taka,” she warned.

“I didn’t say anything,” he replied, taking a sip of tea and turning his eyes back to the  _ manga _ .

“You’re thinking things,” she said.

“I’m allowed to have thoughts.”

“Not if they are in any way negative about my life choices.”

“Then maybe you should make better life choices,” he said.

Yuna flicked him on the forehead as she hurried past him to get to her bedroom and change for work. She emerged shortly after, wearing clothes that were much more appropriate for the daytime, her hair redone and makeup washed off. She was old hat at getting ready quickly, considering she’s been juggling three jobs and a social life since she’d been a teenager.

“I’ll be back by eight,” she said. “But then I’ll be right back out again.”

“Kenji’s?” Taka asked.

“Yeah,” she confirmed. “Will you be alright on your own?”

“Of course,” Taka said. “I’m not a kid anymore, you know.”

“You’ll always be a kid to me,” Yuna said. She was only six years older than Taka, but she’d practically raised him herself. She was taking care of him even before their mother died. They hadn’t exactly had an easy childhood.

“Call me if you need anything,” she said sitting at the  _ genkan _ and slipping into her work shoes. “Don’t try to do too much while I’m away.”

Taka frowned. He’d always been a sickly child, due in part to all the drinking and god knows what else their mother had done when she was pregnant with him. There was nothing wrong with him mentally, but his body gave out on him from time to time. It was why he was in his twenties and still living with his sister. He  _ hated _ being reminded of his limitations.

“There’s leftover curry in the fridge,” Yuna said, as she stood up. “Or there should be if you didn’t eat it all yesterday. You can have that for dinner. Or I can bring something from the shop before I head out to Kenji’s if you want something else.”

“ _ Tonkatsu _ ,” he said. “Please. If I have to eat curry again, I’m going to turn into it.”

“I can manage that,” Yuna said, flashing him a smile. “I’ll see you later.”

Taka waved her off and went back to his breakfast.

_ ……………………………………………………… _

Jin stood outside Ryuzo’s squalid apartment, dark sunglasses over his eyes and a baseball cap pulled low over his face. He looked the way he felt: vaguely like shit. He was wearing a black zip-up hoodie over an old Softbank Hawks t-shirt and a pair of grey joggers that had seen better days. He rarely left the house looking so shoddily groomed, but he didn’t have the energy to care today.

“Ryuzo,” Jin called out as he knocked on the door. “I know you’re in there. My car is parked out front.”

He’d texted and called Ryuzo multiple times that afternoon and got no answer, so he’d taken it upon himself to hop in a cab and check on him. He also had the foresight to stop at Ryuzo’s favorite fast food place and pick up something to eat. It was a shitty apology, but he hoped it would at least get him in the door. Ryuzo was, historically, more likely to forgive someone when there was food involved.

“I brought your favorite,” he called out again, banging on the door. “Hamburgers.”

The door to Ryuzo’s apartment opened a crack. With a sigh of relief, Jin grabbed the door knob to open it wider, only to find that Ryuzo still had the chain on the door.

“I’ll take the food, but I want nothing to do with you,” Ryuzo said, muffled from the other side of the door.

“This is a peace offering,” Jin said. “It’s not really effective if you eat it without me.”

“I don’t want to make peace,” Ryuzo said. “I do want those burgers, though.”

“No Jin, no burgers,” Jin replied.

The door abruptly slammed shut and Jin heard the sound of the chain being undone. Then it was unceremoniously opened again and Jin was treated to the sight of Ryuzo looking very unhappy with him.

He was as sloppily dressed as Jin was and equally as hungover. His hair, which was usually artfully disheveled, could no longer be described as artful. He had the waxy, pale look of someone who had spent the morning hunched over the toilet bowl. He hurried Jin through the front door, trying his best to shield his eyes from the sunlight.

When they were safely out of the sunlight, Jin kicked off his shoes and turned to look at Ryuzo. He was scowling at him, jaw set and mouth in a hard line. Ryuzo hadn’t been this angry in a while. Jin wordlessly held out the bag of hamburgers and Ryuzo snatched it out of his hand, unwrapping one and wolfing down half of it in one bite.

“Slow down,” Jin said. “You’ll make yourself sick.”

Ryuzo made a dismissive noise and continued to wolf the burger down, fixing Jin with an annoyed look.

“So,” Jin tried again. “I can see your mad at me.”

“Whatever gave you that idea?” Ryuzo asked, mouth full of hamburger, in a tone that suggested they both knew exactly why he was mad at Jin. He crumpled the empty wrapper and pulled another burger out from the sack. Jin regretted not grabbing one for himself before handing the bag to Ryuzo.

“I seem to remember you calling me a piece of shit when I left.”

“Because you were being a piece of shit,” Ryuzo said.

“At least I didn’t leave you there without any warning,” Jin protested. “I gave you a heads up and left you my keys.”

“Man, fuck you,” Ryuzo said.

Now Jin was starting to get mad.

“Look, you wanted me to come out and have a good time,” Jin said. “And I did. I don’t know what the problem is.”

“It was supposed to be you and me, like old times,” Ryuzo said. 

“What, you wanted to get wasted and get kicked out of the club for trying to fight someone?” Jin asked, incredulously. “Is that what you meant by old times? Because we’re way too fucking old for that now.”

“That’s not what I meant, Jin.”

“Then what  _ did  _ you mean?” he asked.

Ryuzo looked incredibly frustrated and ran his hand through his already wild hair.

“I don’t know,” he finally said, angrily. “I just thought there’d be more you and me time and less… You and whatever her name was.”

Jin blinked, confused. 

“Didn’t you spend all night grinding on, like, 3 girls?”

“No,” Ryuzo said. “Not  _ all  _ night. I went looking for you after a while and saw you up there in the booth with her. Didn’t want to  _ disturb  _ you, so I went down to the bar. Rung you up a nice fat tab, too.”

Jin winced, thinking about whatever ungodly amount of money Ryuzo’d spent, but he supposed it was his fault for telling him that he could.

“I hope the fuck was worth it,” Ryuzo continued. “Because you’ll be paying for that one for a  _ long  _ time.”

“Why are you so pissed about this?” Jin asked. “You’ve left me places so you could get laid hundreds of times.”

“Yeah, but-” Ryuzo started, then stopped himself short. “Whatever. Nevermind.”

“But what?”

“Forget it,” Ryuzo said, shoveling a bite of hamburger into his mouth.

“No,” Jin said, heated now. “Speak your mind, Ryuzo. Why was this different?”

“Can we talk about this when we’re not both hungover?” Ryuzo asked.

“No,” Jin said. “We’re talking about this now.”

Honestly, he wanted to just hide in the dark until the pounding in his head stopped and his stomach settled. But Jin knew if he put off the conversation, they’d never come back to it. Ryuzo would pout for a while and eventually stop being mad. Jin would be annoyed, but things would go back to normal. It was the easier (and probably smarter) way to deal with things. But Jin was in too foul of a mood for “easy” or “smart”. If Ryuzo wanted to fight, Jin would fight. 

“Damn you,” Ryuzo grumbled. But there wasn’t as much vitriol behind it that Jin expected. “You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?”

“Say what?”

“You were supposed to go home with me last night, you fucking idiot,” Ryuzo said. 

The color rose in Jin’s cheeks just as it rose in Ryuzo’s. They’d woken up in bed together many times; Ryuzo had always laughed it off, chalked it up to being drunk and horny. The longer it went on, however, Jin knew it happened on purpose. Their drunkenness was a convenient explanation, but it did not belie their true motivations.

There was a time when Jin felt more conflicted about their couplings. The first few times it had happened, he’d agonized about how it was going to affect their relationship. He’d always been a little bit in love with Ryuzo growing up, but the older he got, the more he tried to push aside those feelings. He was  _ yakuza _ and  _ yakuza _ didn’t fall in love with other men. Because Ryuzo never talked about what they did in any way but a flippant manner, Jin swallowed his feelings. It was just a drunken fuck and the fact that it kept happening meant nothing else other than that.

Except apparently it did.

If Ryuzo just wanted to get his rocks off, he could have had his pick of any of the women in the club. Hell, he probably could have had any of the men he wanted too. But he’d wanted Jin. Jin who’d promised him a night out, had made eyes at him as they sipped their liquor, and who’d gone home with someone else.

“Shit, man,” Ryuzo said, rubbing at the back of his neck, embarrassed. “I told you to just forget it, didn’t I?”

“You could have just said something,” Jin said softly.

“Yeah,” Ryuzo laughed. “And how would that have worked out?”

_ Better than you might think _ , Jin thought.

“Besides, I know you have to be drunk to want to fuck me,” Ryuzo continued. “Or at least to let yourself want to.”

“That’s… Not true,” Jin said.

“It  _ is _ ,” Ryuzo insisted.

“It  _ isn’t _ ,” Jin countered, surprised at himself for how readily he admitted it. “But every time we’ve fucked, you’ve laughed about it the next day. You expect me to come on to you sober when all you do is joke about it? When  _ you  _ only ever come on to  _ me  _ when you’re drunk too?”

“You’re the fucking  _ patriarch  _ of the Sakai Family,” Ryuzo said. “My fucking  _ boss _ .”

“ _ And _ ?” Jin asked, accusatorily.

Ryuzo made another sound of frustration. 

“It’s complicated,” he growled.

“It’s bullshit,” Jin countered. “Ryuzo, you’re my friend. You’ve been my best friend for years. You think I’m going to beat your ass for trying to get into my pants? You’ve gotten off way easier for a lot worse.”

Despite his discomfort, the corner of Ryuzo’s lips twitched upward momentarily. But Ryuzo still wouldn’t meet Jin’s gaze.

“It’s complicated,” he repeated.

“Ryuzo,” Jin said. “Look at me.”

It took him a minute, like he was trying to muster the courage to do it. When he finally looked up, he had almost a defiant look in his eyes, like he was steeling himself for Jin to reject him. It broke Jin’s heart.

“I’m your boss,” he said. “But I’m your friend first. Not many people have that kind of relationship, especially in our line of work. So take advantage of it, you idiot. You can ask me anything, you know that.”

“Not many people ask if they can fuck their boss.”

“Not many people have me for a boss,” Jin said. “And not everyone is you.”

Just like that, Ryuzo’s body language changed. He stood a little straighter, held his chin just a little higher. He was annoyed, yes, but Jin could tell he wasn’t angry any more.

“So, you’re telling me,” Ryuzo huffed. “That if I’d asked, we could have been fucking since day one?”

“Probably not day one,” Jin said. “I mean, I think we were eight then.”

“Shut up, Jin,” Ryuzo said, punching him in the shoulder. Jin grinned. Ryuzo wouldn’t have thrown a weak punch like that if he hadn't forgiven him already. “You know what I meant.”

“I know what you meant,” Jin said. 

“Huh.”

“Yeah.”

“So what does this mean?” Ryuzo asked.

“I don’t know,” Jin answered. “What do you want it to mean?”

“I don’t know either,” he said. Then he made a face. “Fuck, I think I have to puke again.”

“Oh  _ Jesus _ , Ryuzo.”

Ryuzo pushed past Jin and ran to the bathroom.

_ I’m going to let that idiot sleep with me, _ Jin thought to himself as Ryuzo slammed the door.  _ And I’m  _ sober _. _

With a sigh, he grabbed the bag of discarded hamburgers and pulled one out for himself.

“I told you you’d make yourself sick,” Jin called out as he unwrapped one and took a bite.

“I hate you,” Ryuzo groaned, voice muffled behind the bathroom door. “So much right now.”

_ ……………………………………………………… _

Yuna was exhausted, not a good sign considering she still had a shift to cover at Kenji’s that night. She stopped at a  _ conbini _ on her way home to pick up an energy drink and something so she could make it through the night.

_ Tonkatsu _ , Yuna remembered.  _ Taka wanted Tonkatsu. _

She picked up a container of that as well as Taka’s favorite brand of tea before heading home.

She could sense something was off by the time she got to their building. She stopped at the entrance, looking up to see what exactly it was that was throwing her off. Her eyes went up to the fourth floor where her apartment was and saw that the front door was ajar.  _ Shit _ .

Yuna nearly dropped the bag she was holding as she took off toward the stairs. She took them two at a time, ignoring the burning feeling in her thighs as she did so. Taka was  _ never  _ so careless as to leave the front door open. Never. The apartment was a mess. Nearly every piece of cheap furniture they had had been knocked over or broken. Whoever had done this had also knocked their trash can over. There was garbage everywhere. And blood.

“Taka?” she called out, the bile rising in her throat. “Taka!”

He didn’t answer her. Yuna overturned everything in their tiny apartment, calling out her brother’s name until her voice became a panicked shriek. Taka was gone. Her brother was  _ gone _ . And she had no idea why.

By this time, the neighbors started to crowd around outside of her front door. Yuna knew she had to have been making quite a scene for them to come out and watch her. They lived in a rough area where everyone kept to themselves, no matter what strange screams they heard through the thin walls of the apartment building. But she couldn’t stop herself. She kept calling his name as if he would suddenly stumble out of his bedroom and complain about her waking him up. But the only thing she got was an echo of her own voice.

One of her neighbors, old Mrs. Makimura, finally ran into the apartment and pulled Yuna to her knees.

“Hush, child,” she said. “Hush.”

“My brother,” Yuna sobbed.

“You must calm yourself,” she said, taking Yuna’s hand into her smaller, wrinkled one. “You can’t help your brother like this.”

Yuna took a few hiccuping breaths, trying to regain control. Mrs. Makimura squeezed her hand, then went to shoo away the onlookers. 

“Shall I call the police?” she asked when she came back. By that time, Yuna had gotten herself under control for the most part. She could at least breathe now.

“Yes,” she said.

While she waited for the police to come, Yuna called into work to let Kenji know she’d be out that night. It took the cops a worrying amount of time to show up; they didn’t like to come to this part of town unless they were arresting people, and actually helping the community was rare. The police gave the apartment a perfunctory once-over, but didn’t give Yuna much else.

“We’ll keep you updated as our investigation goes along,” an officer told Yuna dismissively. She felt the rage rise in her gut, but Mrs. Makimura was there, grabbing her hand to restrain her.

“They’re not going to try,” Yuna said after the police had left. “The bastards aren’t even going to  _ try _ .”

Mrs. Makimura frowned and squeezed Yuna’s hand again.

“Let me help you clean up,” she said. “You can’t sleep here like this.”

“No,” Yuna said. “I can’t let you do that. You should get back home. It’s late.”

“It’s no trouble at all,” Mrs. Makimura said. 

So they started to clean, Yuna half-heartedly picking up trash while her neighbor began to tackle the bloodstains. Who could have done this to Taka? It had to have been a mistake. She worked hard to keep the two of them out of trouble. They owed no debts to any of the local loan sharks or gangs. There was no reason for this to have happened. 

Had she not been moving so slowly, Yuna might have thrown the paper away before she realized what it was. She was holding a crumpled up letter addressed to Taka Aoki from a company she didn’t recognize.

“Khan Financial Group?” she read aloud.

“What was that, Aoki-san?” Mrs. Makimura asked.

“Nothing,” Yuna replied, briefly scanning the letter. It was a collection notice. A strongly worded one, at that. When had Taka taken out a loan?  _ Why  _ had Taka taken out a loan? And why hadn’t he told her.

She didn’t know for sure that the two things were related, but the Khan Financial Group was not a company she’d ever heard of before. It was fishy and reeked of  _ yakuza _ . She felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. 

“I told you,” her mother’s voice repeated in her head. “Never fuck a  _ yakuza _ .”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Softbank Hawks- A Japanese professional baseball team based out of Fukuoka. It's the closest team to Tsushima, so I figured Jin would be repping them.


	5. Long Live the Chief

Jin hated “family meetings.” He sat to the right of his uncle’s empty seat at the head of the table, facing directly across Harunobu Adachi. Jin didn’t actually mind Boss Adachi so much. The man was, when not dealing with _yakuza_ matters, quite jovial. Jin had grown up with his two sons and viewed him and his wife Masako as extended family. But next to him was Boss Kikuchi who was glaring daggers Jin’s way and next to _him_ was Boss Nagao whose quiet nature always unsettled Jin, though he couldn’t say why. The rest of his uncle’s captains were seated in a line on either side of the large table, each getting lower in status the further away they got from Boss Shimura’s chair.

Jin knew there were many in the room who thought he was undeserving of the spot he occupied. They’d had great respect for his father Kazumasa, but they still thought Jin was too young, too untested. He had yet to earn his spot in their eyes. Jin suspected that, to some of the men, he never would. The lower-ranking bosses didn’t always keep their opinions to themselves and Jin knew there were many who thought that they were more deserving of the rank than he was. The Yamato-gumi Syndicate was supposed to be a family. But even so, there were many men who would think nothing of betraying one of their own _kyodai_ for a chance to move up higher in the chain of command. Although he was at his uncle’s side, Jin never quite felt safe at one of these meetings.

“Do you know why your uncle called us here today?” Adachi asked.

“No idea,” Jin replied. 

“I see he doesn’t tell you _everything_ , does he, Sakai-aniki” Kikuchi scowled. 

Kikuchi afforded Jin with the politeness he deserved, but even so, the honorific sounded like a mockery in his mouth. Jin shot him a glare, but kept his mouth shut and did not rise to the bait. There was no call to start an altercation. It would only further solidify the other mens’ opinion of Jin as a young hot-head who shouldn’t have been so hastily promoted to patriarch.

“Kikuchi-san,” Adachi warned. “Mind your tongue.”

Jin was appreciative that Adachi had spoken up, but wished he hadn’t. He would never gain the respect of the other captains if Adachi and his uncle always came to his defense. Jin would need to fight his own battles to prove himself to assholes like Boss Kikuchi.

The door to the board room opened and Hiroto Shimura strode in, dressed impeccably in a dark grey suit. There was the sound of a dozen or so chairs scraping across the floors as every man stood up and bowed deeply to their _oyabun_. They did not move until he’d taken his seat at the head of the table between Jin and Adachi.

“Sit,” he said shortly, waving his hand. “I don’t expect this meeting to last all day.”

Each of the captains took his seat and looked expectantly at Shimura. He looked just as calm and self-assured as he always did. His elbows were on the table, hands clasped together with his chin cradled on the backside of them. Only those sitting close to him could see the glint of worry in his eye. Jin felt a sinking feeling in his chest. Shimura was _never_ worried. Whatever this meeting was about was bad.

“I’ve received some information from Yamato-kumicho on the mainland,” Shimura said. At the sound of the _kumicho’s_ name, each man straightened up in his chair. For the most part, he let his regional bosses like Shimura handle their own business, so whenever he passed missives down, it was always important.

“I want you and all of your men to keep your eyes and ears on the ground for anything regarding an entity known as the Khan Financial Group,” he continued. 

His uncle was quiet, watching his men to see if there was any reaction. Unfortunately, the name was not only unfamiliar to Jin; all of the captains shot confused back and forth between each other and Shimura. 

“It’s a foreign corporation,” Shimura said. “I’m not surprised you’ve not heard of them before. But apparently they’ve been creeping their way across the Asian underworld. They’ve taken over most of the Chinese triads and are well on their way to conquering the Jopok groups in Korea.”

Jin frowned. If they were _that_ powerful, how had none of them ever heard of the group before?

“Yamato-kumicho believes that if they follow their current trajectory, they may be entering Japan soon,” Shimura said. “If they haven’t already. Tsushima is the half-way point between Japan and Korea, so there is a good chance that they may start their invasion here.

“We know shockingly little about the group,” he continued. “Especially considering how powerful they are. One would assume they were a front for organized criminal activity, considering they seem to be targeting other denizens of the underworld. But no one can find any connection to any of the known international syndicates. The CEO is a man named Khotun Khan, but his record is spotless. Suspiciously spotless. Yet, no matter how deep we dig, we can’t find anything on him.”

“No businessman has _nothing_ on him,” Adachi said. It was a credit to how deep his friendship with Boss Shimura ran that Jin’s uncle did not admonish him for the interruption. No one else, not even Jin would have dared.

“That’s what I thought,” Shimura said. “And yet, nothing beyond birth records and a few news articles here and there. On the surface, everything seems on the up-and-up. No scandals, no history of shady connections, nothing.”

“Then why is his company targeting the syndicates?” Adachi asked.

“Money?” Shimura suggested. “Power? Why do any of us do what we do? The motivations do not concern us. Making sure the Khan Financial Group does not get a foothold in Japan is what does.”

Jin’s frown deepened. If the rest of Asia had fallen to them, what made his uncle and the _kumicho_ think Tsushima could stop them? It was a small island with one city on it. The _yakuza_ force here wasn’t that large. But it wasn’t his place to question their judgment. It was his duty to obey.

“We know they are in the finance sector,” Shimura said “So those of you with businesses outside of the red light district, be extra vigilant.”

He looked toward Jin who inclined his head toward him in nod. Most of Jin’s men were loan sharks or running real estate fronts. He would place all of them on high alert. He would also personally speak with some of the business owners who were paying him protection money; he would make sure they knew it was in their best interest to not become involved with the new group.

“The _kumicho_ has also said he is prepared to reward any of you handsomely if you can bring any new information to the table,” Shimura continued. “And more, if you can definitively put a stop to the Khan Financial Group’s dealings in Japan.”

There was a buzz around the table as all of the captains perked up.

“What kind of reward?” one of the lesser bosses, Dojima, asked from the far end of the table.

“Whatever Yamato- _kumicho_ sees fit to give you,” Shimura answered shortly.

There was not much left to discuss. After a few more formalities, Shimura dismissed his me. and exited the room. Jin got up to follow, but was stopped by the sound of Kikuchi’s voice.

“I have business with you, _Sakai-aniki_ ,” he said, the emphasis on the honorific once again sounding like an insult. “That _burakumin_ dog of yours put one of my men in the hospital. You need to answer for him.”

Jin felt the flames of anger ignite in his gut. He didn’t like anyone insulting Ryuzo in front of him. And now that they were finally starting to confront the complicated feelings they had toward one another, he _really_ didn’t like it. But to Jin’s credit, he managed to stop himself from lashing out at the other man’s words.

“Ryuzo made a formal apology to you and your family,” Jin said tersely. “I spoke with him about it and disciplined him properly.”

“Did you?” Kikuchi asked. “Because he still had all of his fingers when he came to give that half-hearted excuse of an apology.”

“Getting into a street fight hardly calls for _yubitsume_ ,” Jin replied. And then, perhaps unwisely, he added: “From what I hear, your man was running his mouth about things he shouldn’t have anyway. Would you like me to repeat what he said?”

Kikuchi’s face took on a purplish hue and Jin knew that he knew exactly what his man had said.

“Even so,” he said. “You look foolish, letting your little pet run around unchecked, doing whatever he wants. People are starting to talk.”

Jin narrowed his eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean just that,” Kikuchi spat. “People are starting to talk about you. And the way you run things”

“Do you care to repeat any of it to my face?” Jin asked, the hard edge of a challenge to his voice.

Kikuchi waved him off with a dismissive _tch_.

“Come now, Kikuchi-kun,” came a deceptively genial voice from behind them. “You know better than to speak to Sakai-aniki that way. He does outrank you, after all.”

Hirotsune Nagao stood with a quiet smile on his face, watching the exchange between Jin and Kikuchi. At the sight of him, Kikuchi bristled, becoming even more irate than he already was. Jin wasn’t too pleased about the interruption either. 

“Stay out of this, Nagao,” Kikuchi said. “This is no business of yours.”

“I appreciate your concern, Nagao-san,” Jin said. “But I have the situation under control.”

“Of course, Sakai-aniki,” Nagao replied, the smile still on his face as he bowed. “My apologies.”

“Can’t even fight your own battles, can you, boy?” Kikuchi hissed under his breath after Nagao walked off. “Don’t think I didn’t notice Adachi intervening for you earlier, too.”

Jin couldn’t stop himself. His fist was flying toward Kikuchi’s face before he even realized he was punching him. The captains in the room lept into action, Adachi physically restraining Jin, Dojima restraining Kikuchi, while Nagao and two other lesser bosses (Tachibana and Kashiwagi) stepped between them.

“You little punk!” Kikuchi said, clutching at his rapidly swelling cheek. “Swinging your fists around like a thug!”

“Jin-kun,” Adachi whispered into his ear as he restrained him. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“What’s going on in here?” his uncle’s voice boomed loudly, quieting the chaos in the room. “The meeting has been adjourned.”

“Your _nephew_ ,” Kikuchi said, pushing Dojima off him and stumbling angrily towards Boss Shimura. “Is settling disputes with his fists like a god damn _chinpira_. I hate to question your judgment, Oyassan, but perhaps you were too hasty to fill Kazumasa-aniki’s position.”

The room was silent long enough for Kikuchi to realize he’d made a mistake. When Shimura finally spoke, his voice was dangerously low.

“Adachi, please escort Kikuchi to his car,” he said. “The two of us will speak later. Everyone else, please leave now. Except you, Jin.”

Jin felt like a child again. The color flushed high in his cheeks and he wished very badly that he could take the punch back. The captains filed out of the room, considerately looking at their feet as they did. Jin’s eyes fell to the floor as well, under the stare of his uncle. Kikuchi hadn’t been the only one to fuck up. And Jin didn’t think his uncle would let him off lightly. He’d embarrassed him in front of his men, after all.

After the last of the captains filed out and shut the door behind them, Jin remained silent. He would not try to make excuses for what he’d done. He would not cast the blame on Kikuchi, either. He’d made his own choices and he would deal with it. He waited, a sinking feeling in his stomach until his uncle decided to speak with him.

“You know better than to do something like that,” his uncle said gruffly, although not as angrily as Jin expected. “You’re not a child anymore, Jin.”

“I know,” Jin said. “I’m sorry, uncle. It was a lapse of judgement.”

“We cannot afford any lapses in judgement right now,” Shimura said. “You will not hit another one of my captains again. Understood?”

“Yes, uncle,” Jin replied.

“Look at me, Jin,” Shimura instructed. Jin lifted his face and looked into his uncle’s eyes. They were full of disappointment rather than rage, which was somehow worse.

“I expect better of you, as Kazumasa’s son and as my nephew,” he said. “I’m almost certain Kikuchi was behaving like an ass, but you should not have risen to his bait.”

Jin felt his nostrils flare in anger. Of course he shouldn’t have risen to his bait, but he had. He was only human, after all. And he’d insulted Jin to his face. 

“I know you’re angry, Jin,” Shimura said, a more sympathetic note to his voice. “It may seem like I am removed from most of what my subordinates do, but I do listen. I hear what they say. I hear what they say about you.”

“They all think I am unworthy to have taken my father’s seat,” Jin said. “And maybe they’re right.”

“They are not,” Shimura said sharply. “You are young, yes, untested. But you have your father’s fighting spirit tempered with my sister’s good sense. If anything, you will become a greater captain than Kazumasa ever was. But you need to control your emotions. You _cannot_ slip up like this again.”

“You make it sound so _easy_ ,” Jin protested.

“It is _never_ easy,” Shimura said. “You don’t think my first instinct wasn’t to backhand Kikuchi for his insolence? That man has _always_ been an arrogant little shit who thinks he deserves more than he does.”

Jin raised an eyebrow at his uncle’s language. He’d never heard him speak that way about one of his _shateigashira_.

“It is only one of the reasons he’ll never get higher than he is now,” Shimura continued. “He is useful enough to have been named a patriarch of his own family, but he will never promote again. But _you_ , Jin. _You_ will.”

 _And what if I don’t?_ Jin thought. _What if the_ shateigashira _are right and you place too much faith in me?_

“I’ve spoken with the _kumicho_ ,” Shimura continued. “I plan on retiring within the next five years. I’ve told him to start seriously considering you as my replacement.”

Jin knew that was what his uncle had planned for him. But it still took him by surprise that he’d actually brought it up to the _kumicho_. Until that moment, it had been something theoretical that would happen in the far-off future. But now there was a countdown. Instead of being elated, Jin felt like he was being choked.

Shimura placed a hand on Jin’s shoulder, giving it a fatherly squeeze. 

“You’re doing well, Jin,” he said. “You really are, all things considering. Just tighten things up a bit. Adachi likes you, as does Nagao. The others will follow suit in time. They will be loyal to you by the time I’m ready to step down, I promise.”

“Yes, uncle,” Jin said.

_………………………………………………………_

Jin’s hand shook slightly as he stood against his car and lit a cigarette. He took a deep drag, letting the smoke fill his lungs and the nicotine hit his system. It helped quell his nerves a little, but not much.

 _Yamato-kumicho can always say no_ , he thought. _He has the final say, not my uncle._

But he would most likely approve of the selection. And if he did, Jin would accept the position graciously as was expected of him. But he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all. He already felt like he was struggling to keep up with the duties required of him and he knew the higher up he got, the more responsibility he would have. Part of him wanted to abandon it all and run away, but he knew he’d be haunted the rest of his days if he did. His nightmares were bad now, but they’d only be worse if he ran.

He took another puff of his cigarette, exhaling in one long stream of smoke. The parking lot to the Shimura Family’s office overlooked a fairly busy street. Jin leaned against his car as he smoked, watching the people pass by. That the building was a _yakuza_ family’s office was an open secret on Tsushima, so most people avoided it when they could. It was why it took him a second to realize someone was approaching and calling his name.

“Jin!” 

He looked up and saw the exact last person he expected to see.

“Yuna?”

“Good, you didn’t give me a fake name,” she said, walking into the parking lot.

Her hair was pulled back in a similar way as it had been the night they’d met. But today, she was wearing a red flannel over a white shirt and black jeans. She’d eschewed the knee-high boots for sensible black sneakers and she was wearing a backpack instead of a purse. Jin’s eyes flitted to her lips and he remembered what they looked like wrapped around his cock in the dark. Then he remembered Ryuzo and felt guilty.

“I took a guess and thought you might be here. I didn’t think you'd be so easy to find, though,” she said. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“ _You_ left _my_ apartment without saying goodbye,” Jin reminded her.

“I know,” Yuna replied, looking a little ashamed of herself. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s fine,” Jin said, waving her off. He didn’t really expect her to stay the night. Not many people did. They might be down to sleep with a yakuza, but not to _sleep_ with one. “You said you were looking for me?”

“Yes,” Yuna said. “I wanted to ask you something.”

She slipped the backpack off of her shoulders and unzipped it. She rooted around for a second before pulling out a very crumpled sheet of paper.

“This anyone you and your yakuza _friends_ know?”

Jin saw the name “Khan Financial Group” on the letterhead and his stomach dropped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oyabun- Father. Head-honcho of a yakuza family.  
> Kumicho- Highest ranking member of a yakuza family. Basically the boss of bosses.  
> Yubitsume- Finger shortening. The process of cutting off finger joints and presenting it to the yakuza boss when a subordinate screws up.  
> Oyassan- Father. The yakuza are ALL about the parent-child relationship metaphor when it comes to bosses and their subordinates.  
> Chinpira- Low ranking yakuza. Basically recruits. They are thought to be crude/tacky by the higher ranking members.  
> Shateigashira- A lesser yakuza boss in charge of the kyodai (brothers).
> 
> Honorifics in this chapter:  
> Aniki- Big brother. Used by yakuza instead of Nii-san because it sounds "tougher."  
> San- The most common honorific. Basically just means Mr./Ms.  
> Kun- Used by higher ranking people to younger, lower ranking people, especially towards young boys. Jin grew up with Adachi's boys, so it's more of a term of endearment than a sign of disrespect in this case.


	6. Money Money Money Goes

Jin was gone when Ryuzo woke up. They’d spent most of the previous afternoon and evening alternately talking and recovering from their monstrous hangovers. Neither had felt up to fooling around, considering how shitty they both felt. But they’d spent the night together on Ryuzo’s tiny futon, limbs entwined and bodies pressed together. It had been perfect.

Now, however, the only sign that Jin had been there at all was a hastily-scrawled note, explaining that his uncle had called him and the other patriarchs in for an impromptu meeting. Ryuzo  _ knew  _ that Jin was telling the truth; Jin didn’t lie to him about things like this, not ever. But there was still part of Ryuzo that irrationally feared that Jin had had a change of heart during the night, that he had left and wouldn’t be coming back.

Ryuzo spent that morning in the gym jogging, lifting, and punching until he sweated the anxiety out of his pores. It was well after lunch when he got back home. He was showering when he got the message from Jin and he felt his chest grow warm when he saw it. He grinned as he typed out his reply.

_ Jin Sakai: [sms] Head to my place as soon as you can.  _

_ Ryuzo Tanaka: [sms] C= C= C= C= C=┌(;・ω・)┘ _

_ Jin Sakai: [sms] ??? _

_ Ryuzo Tanaka: [sms] it means i’m on my way _

_ Ryuzo Tanaka: [sms] ffs, jin get with the times _

_ Ryuzo Tanaka: [sms] (；⌣̀_⌣́) _

_ Jin Sakai: [sms] Stop fucking around and get here ASAP. _

“ _ Tch _ ,” Ryuzo said, though there was no one around to hear him. 

He took his time getting dressed, agonizing for longer than he would ever admit about what he’d wear. It was just Jin’s place; there was no need to get all dolled up in a suit. But it was  _ Jin’s _ place-- Jin who was probably, most likely,  _ definitely  _ going to fuck him on that fancy western-style bed of his-- so he wanted to look good.

He ended up going with a tried and true look that had gotten him laid a number of times in the past: black jeans, black boots, and his black leather racer jacket emblazoned with an embroidered red dragon on the back layered over a plain red tee. He swept his unruly hair up into a messy bun and, after one last glance in the mirror, left for Jin’s apartment.

They didn’t live very far from each other, but their neighborhoods were like night and day. The area Ryuzo lived in was squalid and dirty. Most of the people packed into the area were  _ burakumin  _ like he was. The building Jin lived in was surrounded by parks and greenery. It was mostly occupied by single families or young, well-off single people like Jin. Ryuzo always felt a stab of envy as he drove through the area, but he got a bigger rush out of knowing just how much everyone hated seeing him do it.

_ Fuck you, you stuck up sons of bitches _ , he thought as he passed by an older couple out for a walk. They seemed to read his thoughts and scowled at him as he sped past.

He didn’t bother knocking when he got to Jin’s apartment; he never did. He used his copy of Jin’s key to unlock the door and walked in like he owned the place. He kicked off his boots in the  _ genkan _ and rounded the corner into Jin’s kitchen. Kage was waiting for him, tongue lolling and tail wagging furiously.

“Hey Kage-chan,” Ryuzo said, taking the dog’s head in his hands and affectionately rubbing at his jowls. “Where’s your Pops?”

“In here,” Jin called out from the dining room.

Ryuzo furrowed his brow and pouted, a little annoyed that Jin hadn’t greeted him at the door. He jammed his fists into the pockets of his jacket and headed toward the sound of Jin’s voice.

Jin’s dining room was rarely ever used for its intended purpose; Jin took most of his meals at the floor table in his bedroom in front of the television, leaving the dining area as a makeshift home office. Sandwiched between the kitchen and the bedroom, this was the least favorite part of Jin’s home. The walls were emblazoned with Sakai family regalia, the crown jewel of which was a framed antique  _ sashimono  _ banner from the Kamakura period. It belonged in a museum, but Jin’s father had paid good money to purchase it for his private collection when he was still alive. Ryuzo thought it made him look like a pompous asshole, but he would never tell Jin that.

Jin was at his desk, absorbed with whatever it was he was doing on his computer. There was a half-drunk beer gradually growing lukewarm next to him as Jin flicked from screen to screen, a frown on his face. Ryuzo waited, somewhat impatiently for Jin to look up at him, sighing just a bit too loudly when he didn’t do it fast enough.

“You know that just makes me want to take my time finishing this up,” Jin said. “Right?”

But he finally stood up from his computer chair, took a step forward and stretched. Jin was still dressed in what he must have worn to the meeting, although he’d removed his tie and jacket and had rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt, exposing the whorls of blacks, reds, and oranges tattooed into the skin of his forearms. Ryuzo knew that Jin would consider this current state “disheveled” and Ryuzo wanted to dishevel him further.

Feeling reckless, Ryuzo closed the space between them and took Jin’s mouth in a heated kiss. There was an awful moment of hesitation on Jin’s part that made Ryuzo think he’d fucked up, but then Jin was kissing him back and Ryuzo nearly vibrated with glee. He pulled Jin’s hips flush to his, already half-hard at the prospect of what was to come. Jin brought one of his hands to the back of Ryuzo’s head and gripped his hair in his fingers. Ryuzo moaned into his mouth as Jin pulled, and then groaned as Jin kept pulling until their lips were parted.

“Not yet, Ryuzo,” Jin said huskily, pupils blown.He struggled to get out the next bit: “We have work to do first.”

_ ……………………………………………………… _

They headed out in Jin’s car in the late afternoon. They’d shared a beer as he briefed Ryuzo on the meeting that morning. He’d also done some cursory research on the Khan Financial Group himself while he waited for Ryuzo to show up. He got precious little information, but they went over that too. And then, almost as an afterthought, Jin mentioned his encounter with Yuna. Ryuzo had already been displeased about having to deal with a foreign group they knew so little about, but once he realized Yuna was involved, he’d grown sulky.

“Stop pouting, Ryuzo,” Jin said, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye from the driver’s seat.

“I’m not pouting,” Ryuzo answered even though he had a particularly impressive pout on his face.

“Sure looks like you are.”

“I’m just saying,” Ryuzo continued. “Isn’t it suspicious that you take her home, then two days later she finds you outside of your uncle’s office with a letter from this group you’ve only just heard about that morning?”

“And  _ I’m _ just saying that the  _ kumicho _ knew the Khans would be setting their sights on Japan soon,” Jin replied. “It’s not unfathomable to believe they would have started to find footholds on Tsushima already.”

“You’re trusting this woman too much,” Ryuzo said darkly.

“I’m  _ not _ trusting her,” Jin said. “She tried to find me because she was desperate and she thought it might have something to do with our syndicate. I’m following the lead I got from her because it coincides with our interests.”

Ryuzo crossed his arms over his chest and sank down lower in the passenger’s seat. He stared pointedly out of the window, brooding to himself. Jin sighed.

“Are you mad because it’s  _ her _ ?” he asked. “Because if you are, that’s not fair. Her brother’s  _ missing _ . The last thing that’s on her mind is hopping back into bed with me.”

Ryuzo made a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat, but didn’t tear his gaze away from the window. Jin could feel his agitation rising. Things with Ryuzo were supposed to be easier now that all of their feelings were out in the open. Jin hadn’t taken Ryuzo’s jealousy into account.

“Or do you think  _ I’m _ going to want to jump back into bed with her?” he asked. He couldn’t keep the annoyance out of his voice. “Because that’s even less fair.”

“I know,” Ryuzo finally grumbled.

“Then why are you acting like a dickhead about this?” Jin asked. 

“I just don’t like it,” Ryuzo said, finally looking away from the window. His eyes were dark and his brow was furrowed. 

“I don’t like it either,” Jin said. “But orders are orders.”

One of the things Jin had done while waiting for Ryuzo to arrive at his apartment was run a search for the address on the letterhead Yuna had presented him with. It was a real enough address, but he couldn’t find anything about it being a branch location for the Khan Financial Group. So he decided that he’d pay a visit to the place, taking Ryuzo along for the ride.

The address was deep in the warehouse district. It was a blue collar area and the deeper they went into it, the seedier it got. There were not many people on the street, and the few that were had all but disappeared by the time they pulled up to the building.

“This is some bad shit, man,” Ryuzo said, peering out of his window at the building. “You’d expect this financial group to be in the financial district, wouldn’t you?”

“You would,” Jin confirmed. “And in a much better building.”

The warehouse looked abandoned. There was moss growing on the façade and more than a few broken and boarded up windows. But from deep within, Jin saw the glint of a light.

“Someone’s in there,” he said. 

“You wanna go in?” Ryuzo asked. 

“I do,” Jin said. “But not yet.”

“Getting spooked?”

Jin snorted dismissively.

“I’m not teasing you,” Ryuzo said. There was an earnestness in his voice that made Jin look away from the building and search his friend’s face. Ryuzo was still gazing up at the building.

“It reminds me of the old Yarikawa warehouse,” Ryuzo said, his voice a whisper, as if he were afraid to bring it up. “Where they took your old man.”

“Shit, it does, doesn’t it?” Jin said, lowering his own voice as well. 

Once Ryuzo pointed it out, he couldn’t ignore the similarities. That one had been mostly run-down looking from the outside too. But it had been crawling with the Yarikawa family’s men. Jin had done his best to fight his way through, but he was too young, too weak, even with Ryuzo at his side. His father had been long dead by the time he got to him.

“I don’t like this place, Jin,” Ryuzo said, turning to him. “We shouldn’t be here. Not just the two of us alone. Not without packing heat.”

Ryuzo was right. If they were younger, they would have just rushed in without thinking. And they would have died for it. They were older now, and they needed to play things smart.

“Which one of your  _ kyodai  _ do you trust the most?” Jin asked.

“You,” Ryuzo answered immediately.

“I’m not your  _ kyodai  _ anymore,” Jin reminded him. “Who else?”

“Tadayori,” he said. “Or Uchitsune.”

“Good,” Jin said. He liked both of those men. “Use them both. I’ll need you to scope the place out all week. Get one of them out tonight. Be discreet.”

Ryuzo nodded and whipped his phone out, fingers flying furiously on the keyboard. As he did so, Jin felt his own phone buzz, and he pulled it out of his pocket to check. It was a message from Yuna. They’d exchanged numbers that morning just in case he found any information on her brother. He hadn’t expected her to message him, however.

_ Yuna Aoki: [sms] Are you busy right now? _

_ Yuna Aoki: [sms] I may have a lead for you. _

Jin hesitated before responding to her. There wasn’t much else he could do here tonight. When this was done, he had planned on taking Ryuzo back to his place to see what fucking him sober was like. But he’d spent 20 years not knowing what that was like. A few extra hours wouldn’t kill him.

_ Jin Sakai: [sms] Not so busy. What’s up? _

_ Yuna Aoki: [sms] Do you know Merchant Bar? _

_ Jin Sakai: [sms] No. _

Her next text was an address in the Kushi district.

_ Yuna Aoki: [sms] It’s owned by Kenji Nakamura. Ask him about KFG. _

_ Yuna Aoki: [sms] I’ll be there at 7. _

“How would you like to take a detour before we get back to my place,” Jin asked, looking up from his phone.

“I wouldn’t,” Ryuzo answered.

“I figured as much,” Jin said with a sigh. “But we’re going to have to take one anyway.”

Ryuzo groaned.

“Only one more stop,” Jin said. “I promise.”

Jin frowned as he put his car in reverse and made to leave the warehouse district. Ryuzo wasn’t going to like this at all.

_ ……………………………………………………… _

Ryuzo was livid. Jin had explained  _ why  _ they were meeting up with Yuna, but he was still furious. He knew he was being irrational. He would be there to put a stop to it if she had any ulterior motives about seeing Jin, but he didn’t want Jin to see her at all. He had always been possessive with what little he had (part of growing up with nothing and fighting hard to keep it), but he was even more so with Jin. He had a scowl on his face the whole ride to the bar and it only deepened as they walked through the door.

Merchant Bar was a small, dingy little  _ izakaya  _ hidden away in an alley in the Kushi district. There were not many customers there, and the few that were looked old and shady. Ryuzo recognized the woman from the club, Yuna, who was seated at the bar talking with the bartender, a scrawny man with heavy black eyebrows and a tacky bowling shirt.

“If you ever keep something like this from me again, I’ll kill you, Kenji,” she told the bartender.

The man, Kenji, raised his hands animatedly as he protested. If it was meant to calm her, it didn’t work.

“He made me promise not to tell you!” he said. His voice was high-pitched and loud. He sounded like he might have had a Kansai accent, but Ryuzo couldn’t be sure.

“I’ll kill you,” Yuna repeated threateningly.

It was then that Kenji noticed Jin and Ryuzo standing there awkwardly.

“Yuna,” Kenji hissed. “Don’t threaten me in front of the customers.”

Then he turned to them and plastered a big fake smile on his face.

“Welcome, gentleman, to my humble establishment!”

Yuna turned in her seat and spotted them. She gave Ryuzo a once-over before turning to Jin and giving him a nod.

“These aren’t customers, Kenji” she said. “This is that guy I was telling you about, Jin.”

“I’m Jin Sakai, and this is my friend Ryuzo Tanaka,” Jin said. “You said you had a lead for us?”

She remained silent, staring Ryuzo down. He glared right back at her. He could recognize the contempt in her eyes; he was used to seeing it from nearly everyone he crossed paths with.

“He’s on my payroll,” Jin said, trying to ease the tension between the two of them. “And my closest confidant. Anything you say to me, you can say to him. He’ll be working with me to dig up information.”

She didn’t seem comforted by this at all, but she seemed to understand that Ryuzo wasn’t going anywhere. As long as Jin was here, so was he.

“My idiot boss knows something,” she finally said. “Kenji, tell them what you told me.”

“Come, come,” Kenji said, waving them over to the bar. “We don’t want anyone listening in.”

Ryuzo glanced at the patronage in the bar. It was all old men who seemed very intent on working themselves into a good drunk so they wouldn’t have to face reality. He didn’t think they were at all interested in what Kenji would be telling them. But Ryuzo dutifully followed Jin to the bar, careful to sit between him and Yuna. He gave her a look from the side of his eyes, as if daring her to say something. She furrowed her brow at him, half in confusion, half in annoyance, but didn’t say anything. 

“Taka was in here a few months ago,” he said. “Looking for a job. I couldn’t hire him, you see. I barely make enough to keep Yuna on. He got to talking with another one of my customers and they mentioned this Krang Financial Institute or whatever.”

Jin shot up an eyebrow in confusion.

“ _ Kenji _ ,” Yuna said, shortly.

“I don’t remember what it’s called,” he huffed. 

“Khan Financial Group,” Jin corrected.

“Yes, them,” Kenji said, waving off his mistake. “Khan Financial Group. Said they could help him out in a pinch if he needed money.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Ryuzo saw Yuna lower her eyes and shake her head angrily.

“Why would he need money?” Ryuzo asked her.

“Why does anyone need money?” she spat. “We don’t all have the  _ yakuza  _ bankrolling us, do we?”

Ryuzo was about to spit something just as venomous back at her, but he felt Jin’s hand on his shoulder. He decided to keep his mouth shut for Jin’s benefit, but he could still feel anger burning in his gut. He did not like this woman. And she didn’t like him either.

“It doesn’t matter what he needed the money for,” Jin said. “Please, Kenji, go on.”

“I’d never heard of them,” Kenji said. “Thought it might be a scam, but it wasn’t my place to tell him what to do. He’s a grown man, after all.”

He could feel Yuna growing angrier by the moment.

“He took out a loan with them, I think,” Kenji continued. “Managed to stay on top of the payments too. Until he couldn’t.”

“ _ Idiot _ ,” Yuna hissed under her breath. Ryuzo couldn’t tell if it was directed at Kenji or at her brother.

Ryuzo knew how these things went down. He and Jin used to get sent out on collection jobs when Kazumasa was still alive. It was a nasty business if you couldn’t pay. They left people bruised and bloody, but they’d never resorted to kidnapping. That would have been more trouble than it was worth. It was too messy, and the police would be involved. It was one thing for them to turn a blind down to  _ yakuza  _ shakedowns and quite another to ignore a kidnapping. This Khan Financial Group was either very stupid or ridiculously connected to be able to pull something like this off.

“Who was this man who originally told him about the Khan Group?” Jin asked.

“A regular of mine, Enjo Inoue,” Kenji answered. “Although, come to think of it, I haven’t seen him around much either.”

“I know Enjo,” Yuna said darkly. “If he shows his face around here again…”

“You won’t do  _ anything _ ,” Kenji stressed. “For one, he always drinks the top shelf stuff when he’s here. And two, he didn’t make Taka take out a loan. He only told him about them.”

“He had no  _ right _ ,” Yuna said, voice heated.

“Enjo Inoue,” Jin repeated the name. “Ryuzo and I can look into him for you.”

_ Oh, can we? _ Ryuzo thought, shooting an impatient look toward Jin who ignored it.

“I know where that fucker lives,” Yuna said. “I can show you.”

“We’ll pay him a visit,” Jin said. “Tomorrow.”

“ _ Tonight _ ,” Yuna insisted.

“He said tomorrow,” Ryuzo said. “You don’t get to order Jin around.”

“And  _ you  _ don’t get to order  _ me  _ around,” she retorted.

“Show some respect,” he said, even as he heard Jin hissing his name behind him. But he ignored him and pressed on.

“I’ve seen you,  _ Ryuzo _ ,” she said, his name sounding nasty in her mouth. “Out and about at the clubs, acting like an ass. I’ll show respect when you’ve earned it.”

“ _ Enough _ !” Jin said, his normally soft voice booming. 

For a moment, he sounded like his uncle. It shut Ryuzo up and even Yuna held her tongue. Kenji had pressed himself against the back of the bar and some of the patrons looked up curiously from their drinks. Jin looked bashful about his outburst, but continued on.

“We’ll look into tomorrow,” he said gently. But he left no room for argument.

Yuna didn’t look happy, but she gave him a curt nod.

“Thank you for the tip, Kenji,” Jin said. “Ryuzo, let’s go.”

Ryuzo pushed his seat away from the bar and stood up. Jin did the same, but before he left, he turned back to Yuna.

“Please message me his address as soon as you can.”

“I’d like to come along,” Yuna said. “Give him a piece of my mind.”

“Jin,” Ryuzo said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “We don’t need civilians fucking around while we’re trying to work.”

Jin shot Ryuzo a hard look, but didn’t shake his hand off of him.

“Ryuzo has a point,” he said, turning back to Yuna. “You don’t want to be around when we pay him a visit.”

“Afraid I’m going to faint when you start hitting him?” she asked defiantly. “I know how this works. And I want to get a few hits in myself.”

“Yuna!” Kenji hissed, but she ignored him.

“My brother would still be here if it wasn’t for him,” she said. “I’ll stay out of the way when you do your thing, but whatever he’s got to say concerns me too.  _ Please _ .” 

Jin sighed and Ryuzo felt himself grow somehow even more annoyed. He knew that sigh. It was the one he breathed right before giving into one of Ryuzo’s schemes. He was going to let this woman come with them.

_ ……………………………………………………… _

They’d made their way back to Jin’s car in silence. Jin had done a good job of remaining calm until they were seated and ready to drive off. Then he exploded.

“Can you not antagonize people for five fucking minutes?” he asked, sounding just as exasperated as Ryuzo felt. 

“This is a bad fucking idea, Jin,” Ryuzo said.

“I know it is,” Jin said. “Shit, I  _ know _ it is. But that was uncalled for back there.”

“She started it,” he said. “I was being perfectly fucking civil until she started up.”

“Her brother has just been  _ kidnapped _ ,” Jin said. “She’s going to be a little  _ fucking _ upset, isn’t she? You didn’t need to make it  _ worse _ .”

Jin ran a hand through his hair in frustration. Then he balled his right hand into a fist and hit the inside of the driver’s door with a loud bang. Ryuzo was mercifully silent as he tried to calm himself. He could hear his uncle’s words about Ryuzo ringing through his head again and he felt sick.

“Jin,” Ryuzo finally said, his voice uncharacteristically contrite. “I’m sorry.”

Jin turned his head and gave Ryuzo a skeptical look.

“ _ You’re _ sorry?”

“I know, I know,” Ryuzo said. “It’s a shock to me too. I’m just trying to help.”

“I know you are,” Jin said. “But that back there? That isn’t the way to do it.”

Ryuzo slouched in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. Jin licked his lips nervously.

“You know, there was one thing I didn’t mention about the meeting today,” he said.

He hadn’t planned on telling Ryuzo about his uncle’s succession plan, but it came spilling out of him anyway.

“Oh  _ shit _ , Jin,” Ryuzo said. “Well, that’s great news, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Jin said, not feeling great at all. “It is.”

“What’s the problem, then? You don’t seem very happy about it.”

“I’m not,” Jin said. “I don’t think I want it. At least, not yet.”

“You still have a few years,” he said. “And Boss Shimura’s still pretty healthy so he won’t croak on us any time soon. It’s not like this is happening  _ tomorrow _ .”

Jim hummed noncommittally and reached into his pocket for a cigarette. He handed one to Ryuzo who took it eagerly, then lit them both up with his zippo.

“Relax,” Ryuzo said, slipping his hand up to the back of Jin’s neck. Jin leaned into the touch, which was a good sign. It meant he wasn’t truly mad at him. The night could still be salvaged. “I’ll behave myself from now on if it makes things easier.”

“Doubt it,” Jin said.

“Okay, I’ll  _ try _ to behave myself,” Ryuzo conceded.

“Doubt that too.”

“Shut up, Jin,” Ryuzo said, moving his hand and flicking him playfully in the back of the neck. “Anyway, this shit is over now, right? We don't have any more work to do tonight?”

“We do not,” Jin confirmed.

“Then let’s stop sitting in your car like perverts,” Ryuzo said. “Take me back to your place where that sort of thing is more acceptable.”

Jin smiled around his cigarette and started his car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Genkan- the entry way of a Japanese home where you keep your shoes.  
> Sashimono- small banners worn by Japanese soldiers in feudal times to show affiliation on the battlefield.  
> Kyodai- literally brothers. It's what Yakuza call each other, unless they're referring to their superiors.  
> Izakaya- Japanese equivalent of a pub. Serves drinks and sometimes light snacks.


	7. We're Killin' Strangers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. I've been playing the Legends DLC and unlocking the Fancy Fundoshi in New Game+.

He’s in the old Yarikawa warehouse.

_ Shit _ , he thinks.  _ Not again _ .

Jin starts to run, though he knows it’s futile. He’s had this dream a thousand times before and the hallways are always endless until they’re not. But he runs anyway. What else is there to do?

_ I’m coming,  _ Oyaji , he thinks. But he hears the familiar voice hissing in his ear, telling him he’s too late already.

“Shut up,” he says aloud. “Just shut up!”

But the voice doesn’t shut up. It gets louder, it’s hissing laughter ringing in his ears as he runs in the never-ending hallway.

_ I could just stop _ , he thinks.  _ I could stay here until I wake up. Then I wouldn’t have to see it. _

He tries to tell his legs to stop, but they don’t listen. They just keep moving, pumping faster and faster until his lungs burn. He can feel his eyes start to water in frustration, and when the voice of his dead father grows harsher and laughs louder when it realizes he’s crying.

“You’re a  _ child _ , Jin,” it mocks. “A child playing at being a  _ yakuza  _ boss. You’ve fooled everyone, but you can’t fool me. You can’t fool your old man.”

He swings his arm out, throwing a wild punch and connecting with nothing.

“You can’t fight a ghost, Jin,” the voice says. “You should know that by now.”

He growls in anger as he runs, eyes blurry and stinging. He hates this. He hates having to relive this in his dreams night after night after night. He’s tired of running and he’s tired of the crushing weight of the guilt and fear he carries with him. 

“Leave me alone,” he huffs. He doesn’t have much breath in his lungs to spare, but he says it anyway.

His father’s voice doesn’t answer. He thinks it’s a small mercy.

The hallway ends sooner than he expects, which unnerves him. Something isn’t right. The voice is quiet as he walks through the threshold of the room at the end of the hallway. He knows he will find his father’s body here, just like he always does, and there  _ is  _ a corpse bound in the chair. But his father was naked when Jin found him; this corpse is fully clothed.

Jin stops, panting in his confusion. He’s dreamed this many times and the situation has never deviated. Then why is father clothed now? What has changed?

“What’s going on?” he asks aloud. But the voice is silent. He thought it was a mercy before, but now he isn’t sure.

He takes a step forward and then another. The closer he gets, the more he realizes something is  _ wrong _ . Kazumasa Sakai had been a tall man, broad in the shoulders, and increasingly thicker around the waist as he grew older. The body strapped to this chair is smaller, more compact and trim. This is not his father.

“Who are you?” Jin accuses the corpse, panic and bile rising in equal measures in his throat.

The voice comes back then, a cruel laugh bouncing off the walls the room. The voice does not belong to his father either.

“You know who I am,” it says. And Jin recognizes the voice immediately.

“Fuck you!” he spits. “ _ Fuck you! _ ”

“Fuck  _ you _ ,” The corpse replies. And this time the voice is coming from the body in the chair.

Like his dream-corpse has done so many times, it stands up the tearing away its bindings like they’re strips of wet paper. Jin doesn’t fall back this time, nor does he shrink as the corpse approaches him. He’s pissed now, more pissed than he is afraid. 

He rears his fist back, winding up to punch this dead bastard in the face, but the corpse catches his arm effortlessly.

“Jin,” the corpse says, and Jin can hear the smile on his lips even though his face is covered. “I’m disappointed in you.”

“Yeah well, join the fucking club,” he replies bitterly.

The corpse laughs and Jin can smell the rot coming through the bag over its head. Jin is tired of being toyed with. With his free hand, he rips the bag off of it and is greeted with the sight of his own rotting, bloated face staring back at him.

_ ……………………………………………………… _

Jin awoke to Ryuzo shaking him roughly and calling out his name. He sounded mildly panicked.

“What?” he asked, disoriented from being woken up so suddenly.

“You tell me,” Ryuzo said. “I thought you were having a fucking seizure or some shit.”

Jin groaned and pushed himself into a seated position, the blankets pooling around his waist. He was covered in sweat and his heart was still pounding as if he’d actually done all the running he’d done in his dream. 

“Look in the nightstand, Ryuzo” Jin said. “There are cigarettes in there.”

Ryuzo sat up as well and retrieved a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of the nightstand. As he did that, Jin pushed aside the curtains and opened the window. Ryuzo scooted next to him and took two cigarettes from the pack, placing one on his lips and the other between Jin’s. They lit up in silence, then squeezed next to each other by the open window so as not to drop any ashes on Jin’s bed. 

Jin inhaled deeply, feeling the nicotine calm his nerves. If Ryuzo realized his hands were shaking, he mercifully didn’t comment on it. Instead, he took a drag off his own cigarette and turned to Jin.

“Remember when we used to do this as kids?” Ryuzo asked. “I was so sure your dad was going to catch us.”

In high school, Ryuzo had gone through a kleptomania phase. Anything that wasn’t nailed down somehow found its way into his pockets, and his favorite thing to steal was cigarettes. Jin never quite managed to figure out how he got the behind-the-counter stuff, but he did. They’d smoke them together at the park after dark or squeezed together in Jin’s bedroom window at home like they were now.

“I don’t think he would have cared all that much,” Jin said. “It was Yuriko we needed to watch out for.”

Yuriko was Jin’s stepmother. Kazumasa had gone into deep mourning when his wife died and Jin didn’t think he’d ever marry again. Yuriko had originally been hired on as a house-keeper and unofficial nanny to Jin. Over time, she helped Kazumasa smile again and no one was surprised when they married a few years later. Jin loved his mother and cherished her memory, but he’d come to love Yuriko too. Jin’s father had been dead for many years, but he still made a point to visit his stepmother regularly.

“No way,” Ryuzo said, waving a hand dismissively. “Yuriko is a softie.”

“She can be a hard-ass when she wants to be,” Jin said. “She would have come at us with her house slippers if she ever caught us smoking.”

“Not my Yuriko-chan,” Ryuzo said, flicking ash out the window. “She loves me too much.”

“She most certainly does  _ not _ ,” Jin said. “You know  _ she  _ was the one who started calling you ‘demon child’, right?”

“Yeah, but in an  _ affectionate  _ way,” Ryuzo said. 

Jin rolled his eyes. He wasn’t going to let himself be drawn into this conversation for the millionth time. But Ryuzo wasn’t going to let Jin’s silence stop him from talking. He never did.

They’d burned through two cigarettes each before Ryuzo flicked his away and nudged his shoulder up against Jin’s.

“So,” he said, sounding uncharacteristically unsure of himself. “Are we going to talk about that nightmare or what?”

Jin frowned, took one last drag of his second cigarette, and tossed it out the window.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Ryuzo said. “But it scared the shit out of me when I woke up and saw you twitching like that.”

“Sorry,” Jin said. He pulled his upper body back inside the window and turned, leaning his back against the window sill.

“You don’t have to apologize,” Ryuzo said. “Not like you did it on purpose.”

“I dream about my father sometimes,” Jin said quietly. “About how we found him in the Yarikawa Warehouse.”

“Shit.”

“He always looks worse than how we found him,” Jin continued. “And he says things to me.”

“What kind of things?”

“The kind of things that Kikuchi thug probably said about me the other night,” Jin said. “And worse.”

Ryuzo pulled his upper body back inside and frowned at Jin, eyes dark and brow furrowed. He looked like he wanted to fight, but even  _ he  _ knew he couldn’t fight a dream.

“So you dreamed of Kazumasa-aniki?” Ryuzo asked.

“That’s the funny thing,” Jin said. “I didn’t. It wasn’t him tied up in the warehouse this time. It was me.”

Ryuzo was silent for a moment, chewing at the inside of his cheek as he thought.

“You think it was a premonition or something?”

“I think I’m just extremely stressed out,” Jin answered. “And it’s making me have weird dreams.”

“Is it because of what your uncle said?”

“Maybe.”

“Then tell him you don’t want it,” Ryuzo replied. “Tell him you’re not ready to be  _ wakagashira _ .”

Jin let out a harsh bark of a laugh.

“And how do you think that’s going to go?” he asked.

“Fair point,” Ryuzo conceded. “Still, you should say  _ something  _ to him.”

“No,” Jin said.

“But Jin…”

“ _ No. _ ”

Ryuzo made a sound of annoyance, but didn’t argue further. Outside of the window, a bird chirped. It was still dark, but it wouldn’t be for long. They still had a few hours to themselves before they had to get up and start their day. He usually couldn’t sleep after a nightmare, but he hoped Ryuzo’s presence would help put him at ease. He shut the window and lay back down on the bed.

“Come on,” he said. “It’s not quite morning yet. We can still get a few more hours of sleep if we try.”

Ryuzo still looked annoyed. For a moment, Jin thought he might argue with him, but he sighed and lay down beside him. He threw an arm heavily across his waist and kicked his legs in between Jin’s. Before long he was snoring into Jin’s ear and Jin, to his surprise, began to drift off after him.

_ ……………………………………………………… _

Ryuzo had begged Jin to let him come with him to shakedown the Inoue guy, but the fact that Ryuzo was considering it a shakedown was worrying. So he insisted that they stick with the original orders and have Ryuzo stake out the Khan warehouse. Ryuzo had left with a particularly impressive pout on his face, but he hadn’t argued.

Jin chose a simple gray suit for the day. Nothing flashy, but nice enough to make him look important. He did not want to project the image of a  _ yakuza  _ just yet, but he did want Enjo Inoue to think he was important enough to talk to. He checked his phone one last time to make sure he got the address right when he saw another message from Yuna.

_ Yuna Aoki: [sms] You haven’t left for Enjo’s yet, have you? _

_ Jin Sakai: [sms] No. _

_ Yuna Aoki: [sms] Good. I called in sick at work today. I can meet you there whenever you’re ready. _

Jin frowned. He didn’t really want a civilian to be around while he did his work. And he was especially dubious of having her around. It had barely been a week since they’d slept together. Though he had Ryuzo now, he couldn’t deny that he’d had quite a bit of chemistry with Yuna. And the sex had been  _ amazing _ . 

He, of course, wouldn’t try anything. He couldn’t hurt Ryuzo like that and Yuna was too busy dealing with her brother’s disappearance. It would make things easier to focus on that, but it was still messier than Jin would have liked. He wanted to tell her that he’d changed his mind, that she couldn’t come with him, but he had trouble going back on his word.

_ Jin Sakai: [sms] I’ll meet you outside of the building in 20 minutes. _

It didn’t take him the full twenty minutes to get there. Even so, Yuna was already waiting for him when he got there. She was wearing pretty much the same outfit she’d worn the day before, but with a different undershirt shirt and a yellow flannel this time. She looked like she hadn’t slept. And honestly, with her brother missing, she might not have. It had been years since his father died and it was  _ still  _ affecting his sleep more than he wanted it to.

As he approached, she raised an eyebrow at his suit.

“You look like you’re here to sell something,” she said.

“I look professional,” he corrected.

She crossed her arms over her chest and raked her eyes over him. For some reason, Jin felt the color start to rush toward his cheeks under her gaze and he looked away.

“I suppose you’re right,” she said. “Come on, this way.”

He followed her to the building. It was not nearly as seedy as Ryuzo’s apartment, but it wasn’t a very nice place either. The sides were covered with grime and Jin could hear loud noises coming through the thin walls of the other apartments. She led him up three flights of stairs before stopping at apartment number 4. She immediately began banging on the door.

“Enjo, you bastard, open up!” she called out.

Jin shot a panicked look toward her. That was something Ryuzo would do. And he’d specifically not brought him for that very reason. Before he realized what he was doing, he grabbed her arm, stopping her from banging on the door any longer.

Yuna stopped mid-sentence and shot him a withering look which made him drop her arm from his grasp.

“Let’s not go about it this way,” he said. “We need him to talk.”

“Isn’t this how you  _ yakuza  _ types get people to talk?” she asked, still a little put out that he’d pulled her hand away from the door.

Before Jin had time to answer, the door opened. They were greeted by a tall, broad man with a scruffy beard and a crop of closely shaven hair.

“Enjo Inoue?” Jin asked.

“That’s not Enjo,” Yuna said.

“Do you know my brother?” the man asked. 

For as big as he was, his voice was surprisingly gentle, though full of concern. His eyes, small compared to the rest of his features, were also lined with worry.

“I didn’t know Enjo had a brother,” Yuna said. “Let us in, we have business with him.”

“I’m afraid he’s not here,” Enjo’s brother replied. “I came here when he didn’t answer my calls, but his door had been kicked open and the place was trashed.”

Yuna’s brow furrowed and, small as she was, she managed to push past the man and run into the apartment.

“Yuna!” Jin called out after her, but she was already rooting around the trash on the floor. Jin shot an apologetic look at the man in the door who had the good grace to let Jin come in after her.

“What are you doing?” Jin asked.

“This was how those bastards left our apartment,” she said, uncrumpling papers as she rooted around. “I  _ know  _ it was them. They took him just like they took Taka.”

“What are you talking about?” the man asked, the panic rising in his voice. “Someone took Enjo?”

Jin had to remind himself that Yuna was not Ryuzo and he could not snap at her for escalating the situation. But damn if he didn’t want to.

“We don’t know that,” Jin said, trying to keep both Yuna and the man calm. But then Yuna was brandishing a sheet of paper with the same letterhead as the one addressed to her brother and it was all for nothing.

“These Khan bastards have Enjo  _ and  _ Taka,” she said to Jin, ignoring Enjo’s brother. 

“Who has my brother?” the man asked again. And Jin couldn’t take it any longer.

“Stop it,” Jin shouted. “Both of you!”

It was the second time in as many days Jin had silenced people using his uncle’s voice. He didn’t know yet if he liked it or not. But it was good to know that it was effective. Yuna and Enjo’s brother stopped talking immediately and looked toward Jin expectantly. And now that he had their attention, he didn’t quite know what to say.

Well, introductions were always a good place to start.

“I’m Jin Sakai,” he said. “And this is Yuna Aoki.”

“I’m Norio,” the man said. “Norio Inoue.”

Now that Jin had a name to go with the face, he felt a lot more comfortable.

“Do you have any idea why your brother was dealing with the Khan Financial Group, Norio?” Jin asked.

“I have no idea,” Norio replied. “I’ve never even heard of them.”

“Damn it,” Yuna swore under her breath, but didn’t interrupt further.

“Are you police?” Norio asked, looking from Jin to Yuna and back again. “Is Enjo in trouble?”

“No, we aren’t police,” Jin answered even as Yuna snorted. 

“Your brother got messed up with a bad crowd,” Yuna said bitterly. “And drew  _ my _ brother into it.”

Jin could almost see Norio’s thought process as he took stock of the way Jin was dressed and the fact that his brother was missing under mysterious circumstances. Then he came to the same wrong conclusion Yuna had the day before.

“Did Enjo get involved with the  _ yakuza _ ?” he asked, sounding mildly horrified.

“Whoever the Khans are, they aren’t  _ yakuza _ ,” Jin said. He couldn’t quite hide the contempt in his voice.

“Careful, Norio,” Yuna said. “You’ll offend him.”

Jin shot a glare toward Yuna, but she ignored it.

“I know they’re not  _ yakuza _ , but there’s not much else I’ve been able to find out about them,” Jin continued. “Branches of their corporation have been opening up all over Asia. Everything seems to be on the up-and-up. Except clearly it isn’t.”

“What  _ are _ they?” Norio asked. “And why would they want my brother?”

“As far as I know,” Jin said with a sigh. “Something related to banks? Maybe insurance? I honestly couldn’t tell you one hundred percent. They dabble in a lot and leave things intentionally vague. Their website’s Japanese portal is still under construction and there wasn’t one in English, so I’m at a loss.”

“Taka seemed to have taken out a loan with them,” Yuna said, looking down at the paper in her hand. “It seems like your Enjo did too.”

She took a closer look at what was on the paper and whistled at what she saw.

“He got a very bad interest rate, it seems,” she said, handing the paper over to Norio. “And it looks like he couldn’t make the payments.”

“It can’t be as simple as loan sharking,” Jin said. “It  _ can’t _ be. We do that all the time and it’s not nearly as hush-hush as this. There’s no need for secrecy. There has to be something else going on.”

There was no point in pretending he wasn’t  _ yakuza _ . He could tell Norio assumed he was and Yuna had all but confirmed it. So much for trying to look professional.

“I didn’t know Enjo needed money,” Norio said, sounding dazed as he looked at the paper Yuna handed him. “He should have told me. I would have helped him.”

“Well he didn’t,” Yuna said shortly. “And he’s made trouble for all of us.”

Jin sighed. This whole thing had been a bust. Hopefully Ryuzo would have something for him later that night. Even one tiny sliver of information would help.

“I’m sorry for bothering you, Norio,” Jin said. “We’ll be going now.”

“Wait,” Norio said as Jin turned to leave.

But whatever he was about to say was interrupted as the door to the apartment was kicked in. Jin, Norio, and Yuna whipped their heads around and saw three men standing in the doorway, looking around, confused. They looked to be foreigners, which was only confirmed when one of them spoke.

_ “ _ _ Ene zöv gazar gedegt ta itgeltei baina uu? _ ”

“ _ Bi itgeltei baina _ .”

Jin didn’t give the men a chance to explain themselves. People tended not to kick down doors if they were there for legitimate business. Whoever these men were, they meant bad news. Before they had a chance to register what was happening, Jin closed the space between them and connected his fist with the closest one’s jaw. 

All hell broke loose then. Jin rained his fists down on the men in a flurry of blows made doubly impressive by the fact that he was outnumbered against them. He was a little sloppy; it had been years since he had to rely on his fists alone to get the job done and he was a bit annoyed that the men seemed to land as many punches on him as he got on them. But then something went flying and Jin turned his head to see Norio running at one of the men with Yuna on his tail.

Norio seemed a gentle giant, but he fought just as hard as Jin. What Jin had thought was fat had apparently masked muscle underneath it. He grappled with one of the men, throwing him as easily as a child might throw a toy. Yuna, on the other hand, made up for her lack of size and strength when ingenuity. She grasped at the destroyed bits of trash and furniture and managed to hold her own against the third man with her makeshift weapons. That left the last man for Jin, and he could more than handle himself. They left the three men bruised, bloody, and broken on the floor of Enjo’s apartment. 

“Do any of you speak Japanese?” Jin asked. “Why are you here?”

One of them, presumably the leader of the little group, spat a bloody glob at Jin’s feet. A tooth bounced off of his shoe. Jin sneered in disgust and gave the man a swift kick to the ribs.

“This will go easier for you if you talk,” he said. “So I’ll repeat: Why are you here?”

“Collecting for the boss,” one of the three groaned in heavily accented Japanese. 

“One of your people already came to collect,” Yuna said. “Or had you not noticed?”

“Wasn’t us,” he answered. 

“Bullshit.”

“ _ Chamaig novsh! _ ” 

Jin didn’t know what the man said, but he didn’t like the tone. He kicked him again and the man slumped forward. Jin grabbed a fistfull of his hair and pulled his face off of the ground.

“Japanese,” Jin said, his voice dangerously low. “I won’t tell you again.”

The man gave Jin a defiant look. He opened his mouth to speak, but Jin slammed his head to the floor once, twice, three times before he could get anything out. His face was ugly and covered in blood, but his eyes seemed more compliant.

“Wasn’t us,” he repeated, lips having trouble getting the words out now that they were split and swollen.

“You work for the Khan Financial Group?” he asked. 

The man nodded.

“Came to collect from Enjo Inoue,” he said. “Found you instead. Are you going to kill us?”

Jin was seriously considering it. But committing murder in front of two civilians inside of a third civilian’s house would cause a shit show that Jin didn’t want to deal with.

“No. I’m not going to kill you,” Jin said. “But I’m not going to let you go either.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. His hands were bloody and he had a hard time trying to get the screen to unlock with his thumb print. But it did unlock and he placed a quick phone call to his uncle.

“I’m afraid this won’t be very pleasant for you,” he said, turning back to the three men on the ground. “But that’s what you get for fucking around on our turf.”

_ ……………………………………………………… _

Norio and Yuna seemed to be handling assault and battery like champs. Jin let them know that they could leave if they wanted to. His uncle was sending men to help “clean up” so to speak, so it would be best if they made themselves scarce. But Norio didn’t want to leave his brother’s apartment and Yuna… Well, Jin didn’t know Yuna why wanted to stay.

The reinforcements arrived within ten minutes. Boss Shimura had sent Goda and Kuze, two of Captain Adachi’s subordinates to handle the three Khan goons. They each shot a questioning look toward Jin, Yuna, and Norio before dragging the bodies away silently.

“Do they need help?” Norio asked timidly.

“No,” Jin replied. “This is what they do. They’ll clean up after, too. Get the bloodstains off the floor.”

All things considered, Norio seemed to be handling things pretty well. Usually when civilians were exposed to the more violent methods the  _ yakuza _ utilized, it scared the shit out of them. But aside from a slight tremble in his voice, he was keeping it together.

Yuna too. She leaned against the wall, arms crossed over her chest as she watched Goda and Kuze scrub the floors. Jin was impressed with the both of them and he let them know.

“You both had my back back there,” he said. “Thank you.”

Yuna shrugged it off and Norio demurred politely.

“You fought like a demon, Norio,” Jin said. “I wouldn’t have expected that from you.”

“Enjo and I learned to fight as children,” he said. “The Inoues are an old  _ sumo _ family.”

“No shit?” Jin asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes,” he answered. “My father used to wrestle professionally. He’s long since retired, though.”

“Well you certainly held your own,” Jin said. “Did you follow along in the family business?”

“No,” Norio said, dropping his eyes to the floor. He looked like he didn’t want to talk about it any longer, so Jin didn’t press it.

“And you, Yuna,” he said, turning his attention toward her. “Where did you learn to fight?”

“I have a brother,” she said. “We scrapped together as kids.”

“You don’t learn that kind of fighting from sibling rivalry.”

“No,” she said, pushing herself off of the wall she’d been leaning against. “You don’t.”

Yuna looked toward Norio and then back again to Jin. It seemed as if there was something on her mind, but she hadn’t yet decided if she was going to voice her concerns or not. Finally, one side won out.

“Did you think they were lying when they said they didn’t trash the place?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Jin said. “But Kuze and Goda will get the truth out of them by the end of the night.”

Jin knew precious little about where the two men took their hostages, but they had a nearly 100% success rate getting information out of the people they brought there. Jin figured the less he knew about their methods, the better.

“If they didn’t do it, who did?” she asked. “And why?”

“And where is Enjo?” Norio interjected. “I don’t care about his stuff being trashed, but I want to know where my brother is.”

“Get in line,” Yuna muttered.

“We’ll find both of your brothers,” Jin said. “I’ve got my men following another lead as we speak.”

“I hope they have better luck than we did,” she replied darkly. “If something happens to Taka…”

Her voice broke off, as if she didn’t even want to entertain the idea that something would happen.

Jin knew better than to make promises he couldn’t keep. But he also knew what it was like to lose a family member and feel helpless to stop it. He couldn’t fight the sickness that took his mother. He’d tried and failed to fight the men that took away his father. He had no real connection to Taka and Enjo, but seeing the looks on their siblings’ faces struck a chord within him. He would not let them be snatched away too.

“My men and I will find them,” Jin said with finality. “Both of them.”

“I…” Norio started. “I’d like to help.”

Jin shook his head.

“I appreciate the offer, but no,” Jin said. “My men and I have our own stakes in this. You don’t need to get more involved than you already are.”

“ _ You _ don’t get to decide that for us,” Yuna said. “We’re not flunkies you can boss around. We’re not  _ yakuza _ .”

Jin shot her a hard look, but she had a point. There was nothing to stop them from doing what they wanted. Jin could throw his dick around trying to scare them away, but he knew he couldn’t hurt a civilian without reason. Wanting to find their brothers wasn’t reason enough for him to make any real threats, unless they got in his way And so far, they’d only proven themselves to be useful.

“I’ll pass whatever information I can on to you,” he said. “But  _ only  _ the stuff concerning Taka and Enjo. You can do whatever you want with it, but I’m not taking you on any  _ yakuza  _ ridealongs..”

“That will be enough,” Norio said. “Thank you, Jin.”

Yuna crossed her arms over her chest, but didn’t say anything else. That would not be enough for her and he knew it. 

“Norio,” Jin said. “If I were you, I wouldn’t file a report with the police about this. At least not just yet.”

“I understand,” he said. “I won’t.”

Jin nodded. Kuze and Goda finished up shortly after and left after giving Jin a deep bow.

“Are you someone important?” Norio asked. It made Jin uncomfortable to answer. So he didn’t.

“Do you live far away?” he asked. “I drove here. I can bring you back wherever you need to go. Both of you.”

“I couldn’t,” Norio said.

“I could,” Yuna retorted.

In the end, they both took him up on the offer. Norio lived close by, so Jin dropped him off first. Then he was alone with Yuna in the car and the silence was more than a little uncomfortable. She was still angry, he could tell. But there wasn’t much he could do about it. The way she frowned as she looked out the window in the passenger seat reminded him so much of Ryuzo that it was uncanny.

“I’m sorry this didn’t turn out better,” Jin said.

“You did what you could,” Yuna sighed.

“You’re angry with me.”

“I’m angry at a lot of things,” she said, turning away from the window. “You shouldn’t take it personally. You’re doing a lot more to help find Taka than the police did.”

“I’ll admit, I’m doing this for selfish reasons,” he said. “The Khan Financial Group is threatening my livelihood. But I do want to help if I can.”

“Again,” she reiterated. “More than the police did. I  _ do  _ appreciate it.”

They rode on in silence for a while longer until they got to the apartment building that Yuna and her brother shared. She didn’t immediately get out, instead sitting in the seat, staring up at the door like she didn’t want to go up.

“Do you want to get something to eat?” she asked suddenly. 

He looked down at his bloody knuckles, then gestured toward his equally bloody suit.

“I’m not dressed for it,” he said.

“We could get takeout,” she said. “Or delivery. It would be my treat.”

This was not a good idea. Jin could see this going one of two ways and both ended with Ryuzo angry with him. Yuna could be inviting him up to eat, just like she said she was. It would be innocent and he would keep her company until she felt comfortable being alone in the house her brother had been stolen from. Jin would tell Ryuzo and he’d be angry because he wouldn’t quite believe it was innocent. Or Yuna could be inviting him up under the pretense of eating and she’d try to get him in bed again. And then Ryuzo would  _ really  _ be angry.

“I appreciate the offer,” he said. “But I can’t. Maybe some other time.”

Yuna deflated noticeably and Jin felt guilty.

“Yeah,” she said, unbuckling her seatbelt and opening the door. “Some other time.”

Jin watched her as she trudged up the stairs and felt like the biggest asshole on the face of the planet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oyaji- "old man." A way to say father.  
> Ene zöv gazar gedegt ta itgeltei baina uu?- Are you sure this is the right place?  
> Bi itgeltei baina.- I'm sure.  
> Chamaig novsh!- Fuck you, bitch!


	8. Meditate on this Shit

In theory, stake-outs were cool. In practice, they were the most god-awful boring things Ryuzo ever got assigned to do. It was a lot of sitting around in cars, waiting for something to happen and trying not to fall asleep. As far as he could tell, hardly anyone went in or out of the warehouse and this was all a huge waste of time. If anyone else had asked him to do it, he might have just fucked off. But because it was Jin, he was there for the full twelve hours until Uchitsune and Tadayori came to relieve him.

It was past dinner time when he finally set out toward Jin’s apartment. He hadn’t been invited, but he didn’t feel like he needed to be, especially now. Even so, he picked up some _soba_ and beer to share with Jin, just in case Jin was busy and he needed to bribe his way in.

He found Jin leaning against his kitchen counter, resting a bag of ice over one eye. He looked like shit. Split lip, bruises blooming on the skin of his face and over the bits of un-tattooed skin peeking out from his undershirt. Ryuzo felt anger rise up from the ever-present fire of rage in his stomach, but swallowed it back down. 

“Seems like you had a more exciting day than I did,” he said, dropping the containers of food on the counter. “You look  _ awful _ .”

His hands went to Jin’s shoulders without thinking and Jin flinched away.

“What the fuck, man?” Ryuzo asked.

“Sorry,” he said, untensing himself. “It’s been a while since I’ve been in a real fight. Everything fucking hurts.”

Ryuzo tentatively reached out to touch him again and this time Jin let him. His fingers gently ran over the bruises at his collarbone and traced upward to thumb at Jin’s split lip. Ryuzo frowned.

“I thought this Inoue thing wasn’t supposed to be a shakedown,” he said, unable to keep the disappointment out of his voice.

“It wasn’t supposed to be,” Jin said. “And I guess, technically, it wasn’t. Enjo wasn’t even there.”

Ryuzo got out the food as Jin gave him the run-down on what had transpired that day. When he’d let slip that Yuna had been with him, he could feel that angry fire rearing up in his stomach again. He trusted Jin, he  _ did _ . But it didn’t change the fact that he’d fucked Yuna not a week before and Ryuzo was pretty sure he was allowed to be jealous. After all, he didn’t think for a minute Yuna didn’t want to get in his pants again, even with everything going on. How could she not? Ryuzo knew what Jin was like in bed. She’d have to be crazy to not want to fuck him a second time.

“What about you?” Jin asked, slurping up his  _ soba  _ after he’d told his story. “Did you find out anything from the warehouse?”

“Not a goddamn thing,” Ryuzo said, sticking his lower lip out in a slight pout. “No one went in or out all day. It was boring.”

Jin made a noncommittal noise through a mouthful of noodles.

“I’m not cut out for this stakeout shit,” Ryuzo continued. “I mean, I’ll do it because you asked me to, but I hate it.”

“I know,” Jin said. “And I’m sorry. But there’s a reason I’m making you do it.”

“And that reason is?”

Jin popped open his can of beer and took a long swig before answering.

“I want you to be the one who can give my uncle a lead on the Khan Financial Group,” Jin said. “You’ve been a footsoldier for way too long. He has to let you promote if you prove useful.”

“I’m useful as fuck,” Ryuzo said, crossing his arms over his chest, mildly insulted.

“I  _ know _ you are, Ryuzo,” Jin said. “But you need to prove it to my uncle.”

“Man,  _ fuck  _ your uncle,” Ryuzo said, which earned him a hard look from Jin. But he wasn’t sorry he said it. “He doesn’t like me, he’s never liked me, and he never will like me. Don’t even argue with me because you know it’s true.”

Jin, to his credit, didn’t argue. Ryuzo frowned. His friend’s silence was confirmation of what he already suspected, but it still hurt to  _ know _ it was the truth.

“Look, I know he’s our  _ oyassan _ , but he’s an elitist fucking dickbag,” Ryuzo continued. “He’ll never let a  _ burakumin _ get ahead if he can help it. He’ll take whatever I did, credit it to you, and never even think twice about it.”

“You’re wrong,” Jin said. “I won’t let him.”

Ryuzo shook his head and smiled bitterly.

“I know you think you won’t,” Ryuzo said. “And knowing you, you’ll actually try to fight him on it. But Boss Shimura’s going to do what Boss Shimura wants to do. And not even  _ you _ can stop him.”

“Ryuzo,” Jin sighed, dropping his chopsticks and leaning forward on his elbows. “I’ve had a long fucking day. I don’t want to fight about this.”

“I’m not fighting,” Ryuzo said defensively. “I’m just telling you what’s going to happen if  _ you  _ try to fight  _ him _ .”

Jin shut his eyes and pressed his thumbs into the bridge of his nose. Ryuzo felt a little bad for stressing him out, but not as bad as he felt for himself. Shimura treated Ryuzo like something nasty he’d stepped on in the street, but Jin had a huge uncle-shaped blindspot about the matter and either couldn’t or wouldn’t see it. It was the one thing about Jin that well and truly pissed him off; he was so naive when it came to the way Shimura treated his underlings.

Ryuzo had long since given up on ever becoming more than a two-bit  _ chinipira  _ as long as Shimura was  _ wakagashira _ . Everyone with eyeballs could see that one day Jin would inherit the position and Ryuzo would bide his time until then. But fuck, it was going to be a frustrating wait, especially if Jin was going to try and change things now. It would only make things worse for Ryuzo in the long run because Shimura would try to find a way to take it out on him. He didn’t know why the old man hadn’t just excommunicated him from the family yet, unless it was because he knew Jin might flat out rebel or embarrass him in some other way. Fucking  _ dick _ .

“Alright,” Ryuzo conceded. “I won’t talk about it anymore.”

“Thank you,” Jin said. He lifted his head to look Ryuzo in the eyes. “You know I’m just trying to help you, right?”

“I know,” Ryuzo said.

“Thanks for the  _ soba _ ,” he continued. “And the beer.”

“Yeah, well,” Ryuzo said. “Consider it an advance for the head you’re about to give me.”

Jin raised an eyebrow. 

“Oh, did I not mention you were doing that?” Ryuzo asked, the corner of his mouth quirking up in a crooked grin.

“It must have slipped your mind,” Jin said. “You know my lip is busted, right?”

“It’ll make things difficult,” Ryuzo said. “But I think you can do it. I believe in you.”

“Your confidence in me is touching,” Jin said. “Really, it is.”

“I want to put something else in you, so hurry up and finish your goddamn noodles, Jin,” Ryuzo said.

“You’re fucking disgusting.”

“You like it.”

And in spite of his efforts not to, Jin smiled.

_ ……………………………………………………… _

Jin was unbelievably sore the next morning. The fight yesterday had taken a lot more out of him than he thought. His lip was crusted over with blood and his eye swollen despite the ice he’d had on it for most of the afternoon the day before. His knuckles were red, ugly, and chapped, and he had bruises everywhere. It had been years since he’d been in a real fight and now that the adrenaline had worn off, he was made painfully aware of that fact.

“You’re late, Jin,” Shimura said, as Jin walked in through the hidden back entrance of his house for breakfast. He put down the newspaper he’d been reading and took off his reading glasses to give his nephew a once-over. “You look horrible.”

Jin had tried to look presentable. Just because he was in pain, didn’t mean he could slack off appearance-wise. He was dressed just as smartly as usual in a fitted navy suit and dark paisley dress shirt, but he couldn’t quite hide his injuries. He bowed stiffly to his uncle before gingerly lowering himself into the floor seat at the low table.

“How are you feeling?” Shimura asked.

“Like I was hit with a truck,” Jin answered. “I’ve gotten lazy. I should ask Ryuzo to spar with me more often to get back into fighting shape.”

“Hrm,” Shimura said. “Someone of your age and in your position doesn’t need to be getting into fights.”

“Well, I hadn’t planned on it,” Jin reminded him. “And I don’t know that I plan on getting into any more fist fights, but it couldn’t hurt to be prepared, right?”

“I suppose so,” his uncle answered.

Breakfast was rice and  _ natto _ with vegetables and  _ tamagoyaki _ . Jin made a face when he saw it.

“You’re too old to be making faces at  _ natto _ ,” Shimura chuckled. “It’s good for you.”

“I know,” Jin said. “But looking at it makes my skin crawl.”

He ended up eating it without complaint, just as he always did. The meal went by pleasantly enough, all things considered. It wasn’t long before the help cleared away the table and Shimura stood up, beckoning Jin to follow him out to the well-manicured Japanese style garden. Jin wasn’t in the mood to walk around, but he wouldn’t deny his uncle, so he got up and followed him out.

It was warm for autumn. The sun was out, making the red and gold leaves around them glint like fire. Jin wanted to take his suit jacket off, but knew it would be a pain with the bruises on his torso. So he kept it on and sweated as he followed his uncle who seemed to be slowing his pace to make up for Jin’s injuries.

“Adachi-san tells me those men you’ve found have started to talk,” Shimura said. “They’re not giving us much. Only one of them speaks Japanese and he seems the most resistant to answering. But we’re getting things. Slowly but surely.”

“Good,” Jin replied. 

“You showed great initiative finding them,” Shimura continued.

“I didn’t find them,” Jin corrected. “They found me. I just got lucky.”

_ Unlucky _ , his body screamed out. But he kept that comment to himself.

“No matter,” his uncle said. “You wouldn’t have come across them had you not taken it upon yourself to go looking into the matter. Few of the the  _ shateigashira  _ would have done that themselves, and truthfully, I expected you to delegate. But your instincts not to in this case paid out in the end. I’m proud of you, Jin. The  _ kumicho  _ will be impressed as well.”

Jin felt the choking feeling around his neck once again and his hand involuntarily went up to rub at the skin of his throat. Shimura didn’t seem to notice Jin’s discomfort and continued on.

“Of course, there are a few details I’ll leave out when I make my report to him,” he said. “Working with civilians is frowned upon.”

“All of our accountants are civilians,” Jin pointed out. “And most of our administration.”

“In name only,” Shimura said. “We need some legitimate men on our payroll so the police will turn a blind eye when we need them to. But they know our world and how we operate. Many are ex-Yakuza from the 80s themselves. You  _ know _ what I mean when I say civilians.”

Jin knew what his uncle meant. But he didn’t agree with it. Yuna and Norio had both proven themselves useful in the fight with the Khan’s goons. And he wouldn’t have even been there in the first place without Yuna’s lead. Sure, it was dangerous to deal with civilians, but these two weren’t so bad.

“What will you tell the  _ kumicho _ , then?” Jin asked. “About how I got the lead to find the apartment?”

“I’ll think of something,” Shimura said, tapping his finger against his chin as he thought.

Jin thought about the conversation he’d had with Ryuzo the night before and took a chance.

“Perhaps you can tell the  _ kumicho _ one of my

men found a lead in the bar,” Jin said. “Ryuzo. He was with me, after all.”

Shimura shot Jin a hard look.  _ He doesn’t like me, he’s never liked me, and he never will like me _ . That’s what Ryuzo had said. Seeing the sudden stern look in his uncle’s face, Jin realized that it might be true.

“Jin, we spoke of this before,” his uncle said. “ _ You _ are the patriarch of the Sakai family, not the Tanaka boy. Don’t give him the credit you deserve.”

“But I  _ don’t _ deserve it,” Jin said. “Yuna—the civilians do. If we’re going to lie…”

“We’re not lying,” Shimura interrupted. “We’re omitting unsavory details. At the heart of it, you  _ were _ responsible for bringing those men in.”

“But…”

“Why are you arguing with me about this, nephew?” Shimura asked his voice hard. “I’m pleased with what you’ve accomplished and our  _ oyabun _ will be too, when I tell him. This is good for your career and the future of the Sakai family. Why are you trying to ruin it for the sake of that  _ burakumin _ dog of yours?”

Jin, as a rule, did not speak back to his uncle. Not really. They disagreed, sure, but Shimura always had the final word and Jin swallowed his true feelings on the matter. That’s how it always had been and that’s how it should have happened just then. But Jin, perhaps emboldened by Ryuzo, spoke up.

“He’s not a dog,” he said, voice low and resentful.

“What?”

“Ryuzo’s not a dog,” Jin repeated, louder. “And who gives a fuck that he’s  _ burakumin _ ?”

Shimura pressed his lips together in a hard line. His nostrils flared wide and his brow furrowed deep. His face took on a crimson hue, matching the leaves around them. Jin had seen him like this only a few times before, but he knew enough to know it meant his uncle was truly angry. It should have scared Jin into stopping, but it didn’t. He foolishly pressed on.

“Ryuzo’s been loyal for years,” Jin said. “He has my back and he always has. So what if he’s a little hard to handle sometimes? Kikuchi-san is worse, yet you give him an entire family to run.”

“Kikuchi-san has proved himself a valuable asset to our syndicate,” Shimura said, voice gravely and angry. 

“And Ryuzo can do the same,” Jin insisted. “But he hasn’t been given any chances to prove himself. You won’t let me make him anything other than a footsoldier!”

“Enough, Jin!” Shimura said, his voice booming in a way that shut Jin up. “Every family in the Yamato-gumi Syndicate can trace its origins back to the  _ samurai _ . It’s how it has always been and how it always will be. I know your friendship with the Tanaka boy means a great deal to you, but I won’t let you sully the family lines of our organization by promoting him.”

Jin remained silent, fuming with rage. He knew the syndicate prided itself on its  _ samurai _ heritage, but he didn’t realize how deep that pride ran. There weren’t many samurai families left, however, especially on Tsushima. The Shimura family line would end with his uncle and he himself was the last of the Sakais. He could think of three other families as well who would be in similar situations if they didn’t produce more sons. This obsession with keeping power in the hands of the old  _ samurai _ families would be the death of this organization.

_ You idiot _ , Jin thought.  _ You’re slowly killing us all. _

Shimura mistook Jin’s silence as acceptance and when he spoke again, his voice was still stern but the harshness of it had smoothed out.

“Jin, you’re a grown man and patriarch of your own family,” he said. “And I won’t treat you like a child by ordering you around like some of the other shits that work for me. You’re one of my best captains and this soft spot for Tanaka is your only weakness as a leader.”

Jin set his jaw in a hard line as his uncle continued.

“Continue to use him if you must,” he said. “Even dogs have their uses. But don’t harbor any ideas of him advancing beyond his current station. And don’t let him, either. He needs to learn his place and you should learn yours.”

Jin was silent the rest of their walk and he did not accept his uncle’s invitation to stay longer when they got back to the house. Jin left the grounds and drove back to his apartment seething in silent fury. He hoped Ryuzo would still be there, but only Kage greeted him in the  _ genkan _ . Ryuzo was at the Khan’s warehouse, just like Jin had asked him to be. 

A flood of affection washed over him. Ryuzo was worth a hundred of his uncle’s men. If Shimura couldn’t see that, that was on him. Jin would pull Ryuzo up the ranks with him right under his uncle’s nose if he had to. His uncle could go fuck himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oyabun- Another way to say “father”. Basically the head honcho of the yakuza.
> 
> Chinpira- The lowest of the low level of yakuza. They’re flashy and trashy.
> 
> Natto- Fermented soybeans.
> 
> Tamagoyaki- Japanese rolled omelet.


End file.
